


All Night Long

by objectlesson



Series: The House of Durin Series [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Babysitting, Boss/Employee Relationship, Drinking, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hot Dad Bard, Humor, Kid Fic, Lots of Weed and Metal Obviously, M/M, Metal Head Bofur, Romance, Slow Burn, fwb to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 87,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Bofur needs a job, and Bard needs a nanny. This isn't at all about them needing each other.Or the not-so-long-awaited sequel to Living After Midnight!!!
Relationships: Bard the Bowman/Bofur
Series: The House of Durin Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810201
Comments: 532
Kudos: 187





	1. I Want Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hehehe I thought this might take me longer to get up and running but it turns out my passion for the Living After Midnight universe alongside my passion for weird crack pairings has actually fanned the flames under my butt and I cranked out the first two chapters in a week!!! So, behold!!! The Bard/Bofur sequel you've all been waiting for!!! As y'all know I ship the hell out of Bard and Bofur even though they hardly ever interact, but I just think they'd be good boyfriends, so, I wrote a story about it. It helps that James Nesbitt daughters play Bard's daughters. There's also a cute duet of them singing Dean Martin together on youtube, and apparently that's all I need to decide characters should fall in love, SO! 
> 
> A word about a few logistical things! 
> 
> 1\. I aged down Bard's kids in this so they were more of an age where they'd need to be babysat. Sigrid is 13, Bain is 10, and Tilda is 6!
> 
> 2\. I have no idea how old Bofur and Bard are supposed to be in the movies, but I decided Bofur's almost forty (and just a kid at heart) and Bard is around the same age, possibly a little older. I know James Nesbitt is considerably older than Luke Evans but I feel like Bofur's character, especially if he's human and not a dwarf, has a younger feel to him, to! That's that on that. 
> 
> 3\. This takes place about a month after Living After Midnight ends <3 
> 
> 4\. In terms of tags and triggers, this has a lot fewer sensitive matters in it that Living After Midnight does, but there IS an employer/employee relationship element to it so if that bothers you proceed with caution. No one in this story has good boundaries but there's no exploitation or dubious consent to it. 
> 
> enjoy!!!

Bofur is having a very bad day. 

What’s worse is that since Thorin stopped drinking, there’s not even _beer_ in the fridge to steal in an effort to remedy his very bad day. Bofur is doomed to sit on the couch, drinking a fucking root beer and _wishing_ it was real beer, staring at his beat-up Docs where they’re crossed and propped up on the table, trying in vain to work up the energy to apply for more jobs. 

He’s honestly not sure why he bothers, though. Bofur _might_ be the Bermuda Triangle of job applications.

Ever since he got quite suddenly fired from his job at Rasputin’s for (perhaps a bit rudely) pointing out that they were grossly overpricing their used records, every job application he sends out into the ether he _never_ hears about again. He’s always perfectly qualified for the jobs themselves, and Bilbo helped him tidy up his cover letters, but nothing seems to work. He isn’t even receiving _declinations,_ it’s like he never sent them in the first place.He might as well be chucking them into the Marina. Or else he’s cursed, and someone over at Rasputin’s has a tiny voodoo doll with a ushanka on it that they’re manipulating towards failure after failure. 

He presses the neck of his root beer bottle to his lips and stares at his laptop willfully. He’s gotten as far as _imagining_ the process of opening it and checking his (probably very empty) inbox when he hears Bilbo and Thorin come down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Bofur grits his teeth, heart leaping in combined anxiety and irritation. The entire reason he’s _in the living room_ where it’s _infernally hot_ this time of day is because, as of late, his room has become uninhabitable unless Bilbo is in class. _Or_ unless he wants to hear Thorin groaning and Bilbo gasping and the resounding slap of skin against skin for literal hours all goddamned night. Sometimes, if his music is not turned up loud enough or if there’s a moment of silence between songs, he’ll even hear wet, vile, _snick snick_ sounds, and he really does not want to know what the fuck that is.It’s not like he’s _actively_ listening and wondering, anyway. They’re just _so_ fucking loud, and Bilbo’s room is right fucking _there,_ and there’s only so much time Bofur can wear his earbuds before they sort of start to hurt, so. The living room is his only reprieve from being endlessly accosted by the soundtrack of his friends banging through every moment of their honeymoon phase. 

He’s totally happy for them. He really is. Truly. But he also wishes he didn’t know so much about their bedroom habits and preferences. It’s not _at all_ a helpful backdrop to the already very disheartening process of chucking resumes into the Marina. 

Bofur tries to drown out the sounds from the kitchen, but like all things he’d rather forget, he’s inexplicably drawn to it, until it’s all he can hear. They’re currently talking in low voices as they rummage around in the fridge and put something in the toaster, laughing in short, gleeful bursts when they’re not smooching. And Bofur knows they’re smooching because he can hear them smooching. It’s a gross, repeated smacking that plateaus into something more muted and slick-sounding and breathy, and _then_ he hears Bilbo choke out a muffled groan, and suddenly he’s terrified they’re gonna start fucking in the kitchen. Right against the counter in the middle of the fucking day while he sits, helplessly trapped in the living room without the option of sneaking back upstairs because he’d himself away. So, in a panic, he _finally_ finds the motivation required to open his laptop and put on some music. He selects Rainbow’s “Makin’ Love _,_ ”because he is not above pettiness at this point. 

Thankfully, the kissing sounds stop and the talking resumes. He sighs and begrudgingly opens up the craigslist gigs section to see if it’s been updated since the last time he checked (which was, very sadly, only this morning). He’s deep in the agonizing throes of considering whether or not he’s desperate enough to apply at Taco Bell when the front door suddenly slams open. Dwalin shoulders his way in, Whole Foods apron still slung over his thick neck, shaved head shining in a sheen of sweat because it’s been an unnaturally hot September thus far. “Oi,” he says, saluting Bofur where he’s sitting on the couch, frowning at his computer. “You look terrible. Are you still in your _PJs_?! 

“Fuck you,” Bofur mumbles as good-naturedly as possible, turning down his music and gazing at his stained boxers with dismay. Dwalin is right, of course. He _hasn’t_ changed since he got up this morning. He’s a far cry from his usual, cheerful, easygoing self, he’s not even _high_ because he’s broke and can’t justify spending his grocery money on weed. It’s depressing. 

Dwalin strides over, patting Bofur’s cheek with a rough, tattooed hand. “C’mon, smile! I have something to cheer you up. Sick of seeing you so fucking miserable.” He then bends to unlace his boots, kicking them off into a messy pile beside the door before unzipping his backpack and bringing out a six-pack of some fancy-looking IPA with a fish on the can. He brandishes it with a grin, and in spite of himself, Bofur grins back.

“A fucking godsend, you are,” he says, taking the can Dwalin offers him. “Thanks.” 

He cracks it open and gratefully chugs a few swallows, wincing at how warm and bitter it is. Bofur generally hates IPAs; they don’t go down smoothly, and if they’re from Whole Foods, they’re too expensive, but he’s not in a position to be refusing beer at this point, so he keeps drinking, choking it down with a shudder but without complaint. “The beer isn’t even the best bit,” Dwalin says, cracking open his own can and knocking it into Bofur’s so that they both spill a bit of foam on the worn-out carpet. “The beer is to celebrate.”

“What are we celebrating?” Bofur asks. He does not have very much in his life to celebrate right now, but maybe Rhapsody of Fire got back together or something. He wouldn’t know because he’s spending all the time he _would_ spend on metal forums _applying to jobs that never get back to him._

“I got you a job,” Dwalin says after draining half his can in a single impressive chug. 

Bofur immediately chokes, sputtering until his eyes stream, beer foam in his mustache. “You _what?”_ he coughs. “A job _application_ or the whole fucking _job?”_

 _“_ The job itself, if you want it. S’not what you’re looking for, exactly, but hey, it’s money right?” Dwalin offers, shrugging. “I said you were interested and can start right away.” 

Bofur grins, kicking Dwalin in the shin appreciatively. “Hell, as long as it’s not Taco Bell, it’s golden. I was literally _minutes_ away from selling my soul to the fast food gods. Not my proudest moment. But I’ll take Whole Foods over Taco Bell.”

Dwalin snorts into his beer. “Not Taco bell or Whole Foods. It’s more of a gig thing. I have a coworker who needs some help around the house, a real nice guy, single dad.” 

“What sort of help around the house?” Bofur asks, doubt creeping up his throat, threatening to strangle him. “I’m not, like, a _handyman.”_

 _“_ Nah, I think it’s mostly driving. He’s always getting into it with our supervisor, so he works the shittiest hours. He has kids in school and is basically looking for someone with a car who’s down to drop ’em off, pick ’em up, get groceries, throw some dinner in the microwave. That sort of shit.” 

“Oh, so like a Mary Poppins job?” Bofur asks, looking down at his boxers again and wondering if he’s really nanny material, or if some college student with pigtails and a BMW would be better suited to the job. “You think he’ll actually _hire_ me?” 

“On my recommendation? Aye,” Dwalin says, taking the apron off his neck and tossing it onto Bofur’s face. “You owe me.” 

Bofur bats the apron off just in time to see Bilbo pop his head into the living room. He’s wearing an old Rammstein shirt of Thorin’s and, as usual, has so many hickeys on his neck that they’ve stopped looking like individual mouth-shaped marks and morphed into a wide swath of bruised skin. Bofur didn’t even _know_ adults gave each other hickeys until Bilbo and Thorin, but apparently they do. He thought it was funny for about two days, but now it just makes him bristle with all sorts of feelings he does not care to examine. “Bofur got a job?” Bilbo asks. “Congratulations! I know you’ve been looking.” 

“I don’t have it _yet,_ don’t jinx it, ” Bofur snaps, wadding Dwalin’s apron up and throwing it across the room in Bilbo’s general direction. It sails to the ground in front of Thorin, who has just wandered in because he apparently cannot be apart from Bilbo for more than three seconds. Bofur notes that _he_ is not wearing _any_ shirt and has _scratch marks all over his back._ He rips his gaze away, cheeks hot. There are so many things he _does not want to know_ and knows all the same. It’s unsettling. 

_“_ What sort of job?” Thorin asks, looping his arms around Bilbo and pulling him close, burying his face into his hair. 

_Nannying job_ sounds like a joke and _chauffeur_ rhymes with his name so it sounds like even _more_ of a joke, so Bofur settles on “personal assistant,” which he thinks sounds rather professional. “For some single dad Dwalin works with at Whole Foods.” 

He should not have put so much effort into finding the perfect word to describe the job, though, because Bilbo and Thorin are not even listening. Thorin is sticking his tongue out, and Bilbo is rolling up onto the balls of his feet to _lick it,_ like _tongue-licking_ is a thing people just fucking _do_ in the middle of the living room in front of their poor, innocent housemates. Then they’re making out again, and Bofur is sucking down the rest of his beer so that he can crumple the can up and throw _it_ at them, too, since he is fresh out of harmless things to throw and doesn’t want to hurt his laptop. “Jesus Christ,” he gripes, turning back to Dwalin after failing to polish off so much IPA in a single gulp. “When can I start?” By which he means _when can I get the fuck out of here?_

Dwalin shrugs, then burps, then gets his phone out of his back pocket. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him yourself. Here’s his number.” 

And so, after a few awkward texts with a stranger, Bofur has a job interview of sorts set up. 

—-

They agree to meet for coffee at a spot near College and Ashby, which is far too bougie for Bofur’s tastes, but he supposes he shouldn’t expect anything different from someone who works at Whole Foods. He cleans up as best he can for the meeting, borrowing a solid black t-shirt from Ori since he doesn’t own anything that isn’t riddled in holes or bleach stains and opting for a virgin denim jacket that he hasn’t modified yet instead of his usual patch-and-pin-encrusted leather. He even considers forgoing his hat, but when he takes it off and looks at himself in the mirror, it’s like he’s an entirely different person, so he decides he should look like himself if he’s going to give a good and honest impression. He combs his hair and plunks his hat back on before borrowing Fili’s bike and pedaling down the hill. 

He’s nervous when he arrives, worried he’ll come off too desperate or too unprofessional or perhaps just too unkempt despite his best efforts to actually look like the man in his mid-thirties he actually is instead of a perpetual teenager in more bands than he can keep track of. However, the nerves immediately get worse the second he sees Bard, who he instantly recognizes as the person he’s looking for because he’s so obviously a Whole Foods employee that it’s almost comical. Or, it would be comical if he _also_ didn’t look like a fucking Urban Outfitters model. 

Bard is _very_ good-looking for a dad. Like, irritatingly good-looking. He looks like the guy from _Pirates of the Caribbean’s_ slightly older stunt double or something. Not Johnny Depp, the other one. He has shiny brown hair pulled into a strategically messy bun, a chiseled jaw, and high, almost delicate cheekbones. Even _before_ he pushes his aviators up into his hair to reveal his entire face, Bofur already feels threatened by his looks. He’s the exact sort of hot Bofur resents in men because for the whole of his life, he’s never been able to tell if it’s rooted in jealousy or some half-strangled-to-silence yet not-quite-repressed attraction. 

Seeing Bard’s eyes sort of helps. They are the most tired eyes Bofur has ever seen on another person, and his smile is equally exhausted, like the sheer effort of pulling the corners of his mouth up physically pains him. “Bofur?” he asks, offering his hand and blinking in the sunlight. 

Bofur takes it to heartily shake, trying his damnedest to not let himself be derailed by his potential future employer’s unexpected hotness. He can work for a hot dad, it’s _fine._ This changes nothing. “At your service,” he says, grinning before he sits down. “Bard, right?” 

“Mmmhmm,” Bard says, curling his big, nice-looking palm around his tiny white espresso cup. Bofur stares. He could be a hand model for, like, a line of rugged, manly-looking leather watches or something. It’s only when he glances back up at his face that recognition seems to dawn on him, like the memories from a half-faded dream. 

“Wait,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Bard’s stupidly handsome and very, very tired-looking face. “Do I know you?” 

“Do you shop at the Lake Merritt Whole Foods?” Bard asks. 

“Hell, no, we can’t afford Whole Foods...we can barely afford Berkeley Bowl,” he blurts, realizing as soon as it leaves his mouth that he literally forgot this was a job interview he was supposed to be making a good impression during. 

His cheeks color, and he sits back awkwardly, but before he can scramble to find a defense, Bard laughs, shaking his head. “I couldn’t afford it without the employee discount either.” 

The laughter helps dissipate the tightness in Bofur’s chest a little, and he remembers there was a _reason_ he wore his hat. He’s trying to be his authentic, real-person self, not his (apparently very easily ignorable and not at all hirable) resume self. He’s trying to be an honest-to-god human. “You look familiar is all,” he forces himself to say, crossing his arms on the table and leaning closer. “Has Dwalin ever brought you around the House of Durin before? Maybe to a show? A party? Swear I’ve seen your face.” _Your pretty-boy face_ is what he almost says, but he manages to stop in time, biting his cheek and reminding himself that just because he’s being authentic doesn’t mean he has to _willfully_ botch his job interview. He’s got to find a balance. He’s just never been particularly good at that. 

Bard purses his lips and cocks up an eyebrow. “No, but I _did_ have to kick Dwalin and some friends out of the White Horse over the summer…I work some bartending shifts there during the week.” 

Bofur immediately flushes. He only really half-remembers that night, and what _does_ come back to him is in nonsense flashes of color and music and the taste of cheap vodka sodas. He did order plenty of them, though, so it’s likely he _has_ seen this man. “That’s it, then. Damn, it’s coming back to me now.” 

“To me, too,” Bard offers, gesturing to his head. “I recognize the hat.” 

Bofur’s heart sinks. If present him doesn’t ruin the interview, then leave it to past him to do the job. “What a fabulous way to recall the man you’re supposed to entrust with driving your kids around,” Bofur says, making a face. “I promise, I’m usually more responsible.” 

“You were fine,” Bard says easily, waving one of his watch-model hands through the air before tucking it behind his head. Bofur ends up staring at his armpit, at the soft brown hair poking out through the sleeve of his t-shirt. “You weren’t starting shit, you were just singing, I think.” 

Bofur thinks back, trying to arrange his very vague recollections of that bar as his gaze sweeps up to the too-bright sky. “Aye, sounds about right. M’always singing,” he concedes. 

“Good,” Bard says with a curt nod. “Because singing is a big thing in my house. My youngest, Tilda, wants to be on Broadway. Her current dream role is Eponine from _Les Mis_ , so prepare to hear a six-year-old’s rendition of “On My Own” a hundred times a day,” he explains apologetically, smile both fond and self-deprecating, like he loves his daughter, but he also understands that no man in his right mind would willingly expose himself to the sort of job that requires enduring children singing musical numbers ad nauseam. Bofur, however, is just thrilled they’re talking like he _already_ has the job. It’s a massive relief to have Bard try to sell him on the gig instead of having to sell _himself._

 _“_ Well _,”_ he says grinning. “Lucky for Tilda, I can accompany her on a variety of instruments and coach her on her Tony speech.” 

Bard laughs, sounding just as relieved as Bofur feels. “Great,” he says. “She’ll love that.” 

“And you said your youngest…you have more? A whole herd?” 

Bofur shakes his head, still smiling his weary smile. “No, just three. There’s Tilda, the baby, then Bain in the middle. He’s ten and plays soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring and is always trying to set off his model rockets in the backyard, even though he’s not allowed to. We don’t have a gaming console, and he will most _definitely_ try to get you to call CPS to report this travesty. But as far as ten-year-old boys go, he’s a good one. Or I try to make sure he is. My oldest, Sigrid, is thirteen. She’s quiet, responsible, likes to read, very good in school. She’s getting to that age where I keep expecting her to turn into a teenager and start hating me, but so far, it hasn’t happened yet,” he sighs, spinning his little white mug on its little white saucer, gazing down the foamy brown patina crusted inside. “She has too much responsibility, though, and ends up parenting the others just as much as I do. Cooks too many meals, cleans up. Which is _why_ I need someone else around to help. She should be a kid for as long as possible.” 

Bofur, who thought he might have to lie and sugarcoat or at least _beg_ to get this job, finds himself peculiarly moved to sincerity. “They sound like good kids. But mostly you sound like a good dad.” 

Bard glances up, brown eyes flashing with a sudden warmth that reveals itself even from behind so many shades of exhaustion. “I try,” he says. “But it’s hard with work. I’m stressed all the time, and I’m not home as much as I should be. Bain’s grades have been slipping this semester, and Sigrid is stuck helping him with his homework, but he needs a real tutor. And that got me thinking—there are _lots_ of things that need to be done that I keep putting off. The fence is falling down, the cupboards are a mess, the porch could fall apart any minute. I haven’t deep-cleaned in a year. I suppose what I’m looking for isn’t _just_ someone who can drive the kids to and from school and help Bain with homework, but someone who might be able to get things done around the house during the day, too.” He almost winces as he says it, as if he’s either skeptical that Bofur is capable or worried it’s too much to ask. “I know it’s a lot,” he adds, clarifying the matter.

Bofur fights the urge to throw himself prostrate at this man’s feet and shower him with overeager gratitude. Instead, he clears his throat. “Cleaning and driving is fine. And I’m no contractor, but my cousin was and I know my way around a hammer and nail alright. It’s been awhile since I did arithmetic, but I think I can remember the basics…my times tables and Please Explode My Dear Aunt Sally and the like.” 

Bard raises his eyebrows. “ _Explode?_ When I learned that bit, it was _excuse_. Or maybe I just had a boring teacher.” 

“Yeah, same, but my brother Bomber taught me explode instead, and I certainly thought it was funnier that way, so I remembered it better, I guess,” Bofur explains, feeling stupid until he realizes it’s _exactly_ how a ten-year-old boy would think. Maybe he’s more cut out for this job than he realizes. 

“Bain will love that,” Bard says, smiling so that the crow’s feet flanking his dark eyes crinkle up. It’s a genuine smile, and Bofur’s stomach drops as he studies it. “You’re hired. You can come over Saturday afternoon for my half-day shift and meet them.” 

And Bofur is so fucking happy, he grins the whole bike ride back to the House of Durin, and that, too, is a genuine smile. 

—-

At first, Bard’s kids are shy. Tilda hides behind her father, peering around his legs to narrow her eyes at Bofur with equal amounts intrigue and suspicion written across her face. Bain sulks on the couch, glowering and asking repeatedly when he can go out into the yard. Sigrid immediately disappears into her room after very politely and formally introducing herself with a handshake. “Don’t take it personally,” Bard says over his shoulder as he leads Bofur through the house, showing him around. “Trust me, in a day, they’ll be climbing all over you and braiding your hair and riding you like a pony.”

“I wont!” Sigrid yells from where she must be eavesdropping. A door slams. 

Bard locks eyes with Bofur, the corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile. “Correction, Sigird will _not_. My bad.” 

Every time they make sustained eye contact in this fashion, Bofur’s stomach twists up. It’s something about the darkness of Bard’s gaze, not just _in_ it but shadowed beneath it, drawn into the weary crinkled lines. Bofur is always surprised there’s a twinkle mired deep in so much black, and it catches him off guard. Makes him feel like he’s missed a step and tripped. It’s sort of annoying. 

Bard gives him a tour of the house, which is a modest, cluttered Craftsman on the border of South Berkeley and North Oakland. The house, like Bard himself, almost appears to be buckling under the weight of exhaustion: the window trim scuffed, the raised bed planters framing the cracked cement walkway to the door split and sagging. It has a vastly overgrown front yard and a porch with a broken swing, and although everything feels choked with deflated soccer balls and drying weeds, and Bofur has accidentally kicked so many toys half-hidden in the dandelion greens that he’s practically lost count, there’s something that feels very _idyllic_ about the whole place, even though there’s technically no white picket fence. It’s the sort of storybook, suburban home Bofur often bikes past and imagines happy people living inside of. Normal people, simple people, the sorts who can hold decent jobs and get married and have kids without fighting tooth and nail to get there. The sort who play life like a video game, unlocking each new achievement and advancing to the next level, their path direct and uncomplicated. 

Bofur spent much of his adolescence knowing he could never have a life like this, a _house_ like this, and subsequently tricking himself into believing he didn’t _want_ them in the first place so that his inevitable lackluster future wouldn’t be so disappointing. He did a pretty good job, he thinks. He has his bands, his guitars, his friends, his found family, his room at the House of Durin. He doesn’t _need_ a fucking porch swing. And yet, the quiet chaos of Bard’s house still strikes up a weird, ancient, half-buried feeling inside him. Something like longing. Something like inadequacy. So as he follows Bard around, learning which kitchen cupboard he keeps his baking sheets in and how to set the thermostat when it gets too cold at night and where he hides his first-aid kit so Tilda doesn't steal all the band-aids for her hospital dramas, Bofur tries to silence the lick of feeling in his gut, to drown it in denial, instead. His life has never been about getting what he wants, it’s always been about feeling satisfied with what he _has_. He mustn’t let things remind him that he’s nearly thirty-nine because thirty-nine shouldn’t _mean_ anything. 

“Here are the emergency numbers,” Bard says, ripping a sheet out of a yellow legal pad and scrawling across it in a loose, spidery hand. “My mother in law, who lives in Marin. Their pediatrician. My neighbor, who has a key, in case you ever get locked out.” 

“I won’t,” Bofur says with far more assurance than he feels. “Your kids are in good, safe hands, I promise.” 

And then Bard shoots him a weary smile, claps a palm down onto his shoulder gratefully, and leaves out the front door with his Whole Foods apron hanging over his shoulder like a cape.

As soon as he’s alone with the kids, Bofur gets ambushed. First, someone hits him in the back with a Nerf gun. He whips around to find Tilda standing there with her face a mask of mock innocence, just as Bain pops his head out from under the coffee table and immediately chucks what looks like a Beanie Baby right in Bofur’s face. 

Luckily, he has excellent reflexes and hand-eye coordination from the few years he spent playing drums for a thrash band, and catches it single-fistedly. “Gotcha,” he says, chucking it back. “Your dad said you were good kids...was he lying, or do you have him fooled?”

Bain does not seem to register the question, though, he’s too busy staring at Bofur through the waves of untidy dark hair that have fallen in his eyes. “Why is your mustache like that?” he asks, mouth twisting to the side as he squirms on the carpet. 

Bofur sits down on the couch, preparing to field questions. “Because I like _something_ to be fancy,” he explains, smoothing his fingers over the long, waxed tips with flourish. “Since the rest of me isn’t.” 

Tilda plops down next to him, keeping a cautious distance and still clutching the Nerf gun as she examines the rest of him, perhaps testing for and preparing to appraise the status of his observable fanciness. Then she wrinkles her nose in disapproval. “Why do you have a hat?” 

“Why do _you_ have a tutu?” he shoots back at her, pointing as the crisp gather of neon pink tule around her hips. In addition to the tutu, she’s _also_ wearing a shirt with a glittery horse on it, lady bug print leggings, and bright green galoshes. There are so many colors and patterns that it sort of makes Bofur dizzy, at the same time he’s impressed. 

She dodges the question. “Are you bald under there?” 

“Yes,” he lies, nodding. “You got me, very sad tale. I went to the Oakland Zoo and walked past the giraffe enclosure, and a giraffe, tall as your house, probably nearsighted, given what happened, saw my luscious locks and mistook them for hay. Bent down and took a giant fucking bite right off the top of my head. Now I wear a hat so I don’t get sunburnt.” 

The thrill of the story itself is clearly lost to the spectacular excitement of the word _fuck._ “You just said the F word!” Bain exclaims, voice a mix of awe, horror, and mild respect. Tilda is just gasping dramatically, eyes wide and mouth open into a tight O like this moment is the Broadway audition she’s been waiting for. Bofur tries not to panic, considering he has just won their favor and potentially lost their father’s in one fell swoop. 

“Goddam—darn it, I did, didn’t I?” he says, heart rabbiting in his chest as he puts his hands on his hips. He’s not good at this. He hasn’t had to moderate his language his entire life, really. Not since he moved out with Bomber at sixteen and could curse as much as he liked. “Listen,” he says, thinking quickly, scrambling to come up with a plan. He leans conspiratorially down to where Bain is still lying on the floor as Tilda scrambles closer to hear. “How about we make a deal. You can each say that word _once_ , quietly, here to me, and I won’t tell anyone, as long as _you_ two don’t tell your dad and sister I accidentally said it.” 

Bain thinks about it, eyes narrowing. “Two times,” he says, holding up a peace sign. 

“You drive a hard bargain,” Bofur sighs before making a fist around Bain’s fingers and shaking his hand. “But I accept the terms.” 

Tilda giggles and bounces on the couch, clearly about to embark on the most exciting moment of her six-year-old life. “Sigrid’s going to be so jealous.” 

“No, she’s not, because she won’t _know,”_ Bofur explains, clapping his hands together, eager to get this over with so that he can proceed to actually being a good babysitter after his minor transgression. “Okay, kids, chop chop, let’s hear it.” 

“Fuck,” Bain says in a hush before he grins. “ _Fuck.”_

It sends Tilda into a bout of hysterics, and she hurls herself backward onto the couch cushions beside Bofur, cackling breathlessly for a moment before containing herself enough to quietly whisper a muted, “fff-k.” 

“C’mon, Tilda, that was weak,” Bain announces crawling out from under the table and depositing himself on Bofur’s other side. “You missed the ’u’ sound. It’s F—”

“Hey! Two times, buddy,” Bofur snaps, elbowing him in the side. “The free pass is over.” 

Bain pouts as Tilda rights herself, inhaling like she’s about to jump into a pool. 

“Good,” Bofur says, mimicking her, lifting his chest and sitting up tall. “Use the diaphragm, make it count.” 

She takes a few big, deep breaths before emphatically uttering, “ _Fuck.”_ Then she flings herself into the cushions again, dissolving into giggles, cheeks pink with delight. 

Bofur shoots her a thumbs up. “Much better. Okay, the deed is done, we are now bound in a secret blood-pact of secret secrecy. Everybody put your hand into the circle like we just scored a goal at a soccer game.” 

They do, both wheezing with barely restrained laughter. “F-bomb bond, dissolved,” Bofur says, wiggling his fingers. “Poof! We can never talk about it ever again.” 

“But Daddy says it sometimes, too, you know,” Tilda says sagely, now obviously a connoisseur of cursing. 

“Says what? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bofur declares, shrugging, and they both seem to think that’s positively hilarious and start rolling around cracking up again. Bofur sincerely hopes he hasn’t given Bard’s kids psychological damage already. That would not be a particularly good thing to do on his first day. 

Luckily, the sanctioned secret cursing session seems to earn him the dual privileges of both respect _and_ coolness. Tilda and Bain not only seem to like him, they _listen_ to him. It’s a huge relief. He spends the rest of the afternoon being actively fought over. Bain keeps trying to drag him out into the yard to show him the scorch mark left from one of his rockets, while Tilda is taking every opportunity to tug him into her room so that they can do “spells,” whatever that means. He manages to appease them both at the same time by offering to make a “potion” from whatever materials Tilda collects, an endeavor Bain enthusiastically supports as long as Bofur promises to drink a little bit of it. Several hours are spent mixing their findings into a horrible soup. So far it has salt, ketchup, barbecue sauce, pepper, ranch, regular mustard, spicy mustard, non-dairy creamer, soy sauce, hot sauce, relish, mayonnaise, and a splash of orange juice. Tilda brings in a fist full of dry grass from the yard and a pail full of hose water, and together, they mix it all up. 

“You’re gonna barf,” Bain says gleefully. 

“I won’t,” Bofur scoffs, though he is not at all certain. “Tilda is going to magic it into something delicious, aren’t you?” 

“Nope!” she says, promising nothing as he lifts her up with his hands under her armpits so that she can wave her wand (pencil) over the concoction, which is brown save for the bits of yellow-green from the yard swimming in it. After she says some nonsense words, Bofur sets her down and rubs his palms together before ceremoniously taking a shot glass from Bain. 

“Alright,” he says, filling it up. “If I die, the emergency contacts are on the fridge. You can use my cellphone,” he says, sniffing the glass. It smells tangy and salty. Honestly, not too bad. He used to do shit like this in grade school to impress girls, and back then, there were usually, like, bits of tuna and Cheetos swimming in it, so. Things could be worse. 

He throws back the shot while the kids watch, rapt with disgust and delight and more disgust. Bain is already eyeing his phone, likely hoping for an untimely death so that he can inherit it. 

But of course, Bofur is fine. It’s awful, but it’s tolerable. As one might expect as it tastes exactly like all the things that are in it. He picks a bit of grass off his tongue. “Truly outstanding. Superb. Perfectly balanced. Compliments to the chefs,” he says, bowing to each kid over and over again as they giggle and shriek and dance around the kitchen and generally act as if he’s just completed some truly amazing feat of artistry or perhaps a trick on a trapeze. He’s thrilled they’re so easy to entertain. He takes another shot of the potion, shuddering, and the crowd goes wild. 

They must be making so much noise that Sigrid cannot read her book in peace because this is the moment she storms out into the kitchen. “What are you guys doing?” she snaps, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at her brother in particular, who has spilled out onto the floor he is laughing so hard. 

“Making potions,” Bofur explains, gesturing to the bowl and its dreadful contents with a shrug. “Want some? I’m also about to make some dinner. You can stick around if you want.” 

She glares at him. “Can you even cook?” she spits out. 

It’s lame, but the venom in her voice actually sort of hurts. Bofur has been afraid of thirteen-year-old girls his whole life, probably, but he forces himself not to recoil. “I can, believe it or not. And at the very least, I can put instant dinners from the freezer into the oven.” 

“So can I,” she says without looking up. She’s sat down at the kitchen table and opened up her book, staring at it even though Bofur is fairly sure she’s not actually reading. He frowns, realizing that Sigrid might be a hard nut to crack. 

“Tilda, Bain,” he says, picking up the bowl, potion sloshing menacingly inside. “Take this out to the yard and feed a plant with it, will you? Unless you would like a cup each.” 

They both shriek in disgust and scamper off as predicted. He washes his hands, studying Sigrid’s frown, her dirty blonde hair. He didn’t think she looked at all like Bard when he first saw her, but when she frowns, he sees it a bit. The sadness. “What’re you reading?” he asks as he returns all the sauces and spices where he found them, exchanging them for dinner ingredients. Bilbo once gave him a recipe for a simple, one-pot chili, and he’s pretty sure Bard has everything to make it. “Looks like fantasy.” 

“It is,” she says flatly, without looking up. Bofur lets her be, opening cans and chopping onions, listening to the distant, heated but safe-sounding argument Bain and Tilda are having in the backyard as to which plant most deserves the potion. He’s about to search the freezer for frozen corn when Sigrid startles him out of his silence, asking, “How do you know my dad?” 

Bofur is not sure why, but Bard’s mere _mention_ heats up his cheeks. He tightens his grip on the freezer door, staring at a crayon horse drawing tacked up with magnets until his heart slows a bit. “Your dad and my housemate work together,” he explains, choosing to omit the part about the bar, as it’s neither appropriate nor relevant. “He passed on my information, and voila, I’m your babysitter now.” 

She shuts her book and crosses her legs, shooting Bofur a positively withering look as he gives up on the corn. “I don’t need a babysitter.” 

“I’m your _personal chef_ now,” he corrects, holding up a clove of garlic to demonstrate. Then he turns on a burner and dumps the diced onion into a pot, eyes watering because he is weak and onions hurt and thirteen-year-old girls are scary and it only just occurred to him that lots of kids hate onions so maybe they’ll hate Bilbo’s chili recipe, too. 

Sigrid watches him, mouth pursed into a flat, judgmental line until it falters, and she turns back to her book. “Dad said you already had a job playing music.” 

Bofur’s throat tightens at the knowledge that Bard has shared this information about him. “He’s right,” he explains, draining the cans of beans before depositing them one by one into the now sizzling pot of onions. “I play in bands.” 

“Are they famous?” 

“Not very, but people _do_ show up, and I _do_ get paid. But as you can imagine, it’s not the most regular job. Not like Whole Foods and bartending, where you can go every day.” 

“So you weren’t making enough money?” she asks suspiciously. 

“ _No,_ I had too much time on my hands. I was, like, I could pick up another hobby…needlecraft, maybe…or underwater basket weaving? Flea circus? They all seemed too impractical in the end, though, so I decided to go the way of the _dreaded day job._ So far, it’s been alright...I mean, I got to drink grass and hot sauce together, so I’m already living it up. “

Finally, _fucking finally,_ Sigrid laughs. It’s a small laugh but a genuine one, bubbling up out of her in a wordless, stifled snort like she _tried_ to choke it down but couldn’t manage. Bofur lets out a breath he hardly realized he was holding. “Gotcha,” he says, grinning at her. 

She is doing a very poor job of concealing a smile. “I hate onions,” she says then. 

“I will make you a portion without,” he concedes. 

They share space quietly as the sun goes down, Bofur cooking and Sigrid reading while Tilda and Bain chase each other around in the yard, laughing and shouting about spells and potions and magic. 

Bofur is watching muted _Ninja Warrior_ reruns on TV when Bard returns later that night. The sound of the key in the door makes him scramble up, heart leaping in his throat, blood racing like he’s about to get caught doing something wrong. It’s absurd, though, founded in nothing. The kids are all in bed, teeth brushed after a decent, home-cooked meal. No one is injured, nothing is on fire. He did a pretty decent job, he thinks, at his first-ever babysitting gig. Still. Just _seeing_ Bard’s tall, willowy frame backlit by the porch light makes him nervous. 

“Hello,” Bard says, voice tired, eyes even more so. It seems like there are new lines about his mouth, and Bofur chews the inside of his cheek as he studies them, willing his own pulse to slow. “I trust you endured no disasters? The house is still standing...I didn’t get any calls from the neighbors.” He hangs up his apron beside his jacket, groans, and cracks his back. 

“Aye, no travesties. Your kids are perfect angels.” 

Bard snorts. “They’re not, but…they’re not the worst. I’m glad you could handle them.” 

“Psh, it was no problem at all,” Bofur says, waving a hand through the air dismissively. “I hope they didn’t learn any new words.” 

“Nothing I haven’t said before, I’m sure,” Bard says, carding a hand through his hair to loosen the elastic before reaching out and clapping Bofur on the shoulder and handing him a check. “This is for you. And maybe—maybe we’ll see you around.” 

It’s an odd, vague, noncommittal thing to say. And then there’s the way he _says_ it—so curtly, his words clipped like a parakeet’s wings. As Bofur slides the check into his pocket, waves goodbye, and wheels his bike out into the street, he wonders if he’s done something wrong, or if that level of gratitude and hospitality is all he can expect from Bard from here on out. Which is _fine,_ really. It’s not like he expects they’ll become friends. Or even that he’ll keep the job, considering there are likely more qualified people out there in the city, just as desperate for a paycheck as he is. 

He tries not to think about it too much. He bikes to the liquor store, buys himself a cheap six-pack, and takes it back to drink alone in the House of Durin. When he wakes up bleary-eyed with a headache, there’s a text from Bard. 

_you were a big hit. down to come back? I have a proper schedule if you’re genuinely interested in this being a regular thing._

Bofur flops back into his bed upon reading it and grins at the ceiling. _Fuck yeah,_ he texts back. When he hits send, he decides he’s going to have a good day, today. 


	2. Naked in the Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends!!! More of this, in which lines are blurred between professional and personal and Bofur continues to have a gay crisis. I am falling so hard for these characters now that when I watch the hobbit I'm sad they don't interact more. Life imitates art imitating life imitating art, I suppose. I love you all. 
> 
> I recommend Dio, Edguy, Rainbow, and Rhapsody of Fire for a suitable soundtrack <3

The next week and a half is a blur of Barbies and power tools and model cars and frozen vegetables, of summer’s scorch suddenly giving way to early sunsets and fall’s biting chill. Bofur spends _most_ days at Bard’s. On the weekends, he moonlights as a musical jungle gym, alternating between giving the younger two piggyback ride after piggyback ride to a playlist he made of kid-friendly, metal-cusp rock bands like AC/DC and Van Halen and Black Sabbath (with some ultra-cheesy, arcade-style power metal sprinkled in for good measure). If he’s _not_ a musical jungle gym, then he’s a fierce knight or a sentient talking cat or an evil wizard in whatever detailed and highly bizarre make-believe game Tilda ropes him into. Or he’s a rocket mechanic, Bain’s right-hand man at NASAas he builds his latest model. Or he’s a valiant puzzle-piece finder, a doll-hospital technician, a storyteller. 

In fact, _that_ is how he manages to win over Sigrid in the end: fantasy stories. Which, truth be told, are not even his stories as much as they’re Thorin’s stories, since they’re lifted directly from Azog the Defiler song concepts. He suspects the kids think he just _invented_ the hoards of treasure buried in the mountain that is protected and ruled over by a greedy dragon, the tragic tales of burnt cities and woodland elves and packs of wolf-riding orcs. But really, it’s all just Azog the Defiler lore. Sure, he _might_ embellish a little and cut out the carnage to make it six-year-old-friendly, but still, Bofur almost feels bad about it, so in an effort to give Thorin credit where it’s due, he gets an Azog the Defiler CD for Sigrid. “Here,” he says, handing it to her one evening after he’s tucked Bain and Tilda in already and it’s just the two of them, straightening up the kitchen. “You might not like the music, but you’ll recognize the characters.”

She does not thank him or tell him what she thinks of the record at all, but he hears the muddled guitars coming from her room sometimes, and she’s much _nicer_ to him after this olive branch is in place, so he figures it’s a step in the right direction. And really, the job is easier with Sigrid’s help, so he’s grateful, as always, for the undeniable unifying power of metal. 

In general, his weekend work days are more exhausting, but they pass quickly, between the playtime and the cooking and the cleaning and the sometimes several-hours-long process of cajoling the whole crowd to bed before Bard staggers in around 10 pm to exchange his Whole Food apron for his White Horse shirt. 

During the week, Bofur’s duties are a little more varied. He gets there early to pick the kids up and drop them off at school, and then he comes back and does what he can around the house before he needs to go get them again. Surprisingly, the bulk of the necessary repairs are within his limited capabilities. Most days, he smokes a fat blunt and borrows Bifur’s toolkit from when he was a contractor, and then tinkers around where he can. He rights the poles of the fallen fence and re-hangs the porch swing. He hammers the planters together and treats and stains the wood so it won’t further rot. He also cleans the entire house, one room at a time, starting with the kitchen. 

After watching Bilbo transform the kitchen at the House of Durin into an actual, functioning space, Bofur applies the same level of care to Bard’s house. He scrapes all the blackened bits of food out of the oven and wipes it down so that it won’t smoke when he reheats things anymore. He scrubs the microwave and goes through all the food in the depths of the fridge, throwing out everything that’s expired. He organizes the pantry and cupboards and the space under the sink, making designated spots for both plastic _and_ paper reusable trash bags. When Bard comes home after the fact and witnesses the transformation, he’s _so impressed_ that Bofur feels motivated to tackle each subsequent room with the same level of detail-oriented fervor. 

It proves to be a pattern of sorts: if Bard validates anything Bofur does, he’s ten times more likely to do it again, and to do it _better._ He feels like a fucking _dog_ sometimes, tail wagging when his master comes home, desperate for a bone, for a pat, for _anything._ Bofur always feels fucking weird about it once he’s off and driving home, though, because it’s not like he gets _paid more_ for throwing his entire self into cleaning projects or landscaping or childcare or whatever. He gets an hourly wage that’s reasonable, bordering on generous, and that’s it. But at the same time, he wants to please Bard _so much,_ wants to take some of the terrible weight he’s clearly bearing off his shoulders and share the load. It’s almost _compulsive_ at this point, like he gets intrinsic validation from helping this man out, regardless of whether he’s paid for it. 

This is probably related to the very unfortunate revelation that Bofur is still coming to terms with in gradual increments when he is especially high, which is that he’s pretty sure he’s, like. _Attracted_ to Bard. He isn’t _just_ jealous of or intimidated by his good looks, his kind eyes and handsome face and toned arms and thick dark hair that he always wears up in a messy bun. It’s not _just_ his dedication to the new job that has him nervous every time Bard comes home or swelling with a strange, muted pride whenever he manages to make Bard smile or laugh, each moment catalogued in his brain so that he might thumb through them before he goes to sleep and smile to himself at the memory. It’s something else. 

Bofur has always known that he had the potential to be attracted to men, to hook up with them. Maybe even date them. The opportunity has just…never really arisen. Up until this point in his life, doing anything of _that_ nature with a man has remained largely theoretical because there’s never been an _actual_ man in his _actual_ life with whom Bofur wanted to _do_ those things. He could go on and on about how sexy the singer from Sabaton was or how Devin Townsend’s guitar skills made his dick hard, but that was entirely different than, like—personally knowing a man he thought that way about. It had just never happened to him. Plus, there was the issue of Bilbo and Thorin being so fucking disgusting on every surface of their shared house together that he was forced to wonder if he was secretly homophobic and just misinterpreting his perception of his own openminded-ness this whole time. 

But then there’s _Bard_. Bofur _looks at his lips,_ sometimes. He looks at him _lick_ his lips and then licks his own lips right after the fact, stomach in knots. And that has just never, ever happened to him with a man before, so it’s not exactly something he can ignore. He spends a lot of time each day, sweating in the noonday sun as he aggressively weeds the backyard, wondering what it would be like to _actually_ kiss Bard instead of just thinking about it. 

It makes him so freaked out and dizzy that he decides maybe it’s not a kissing thing. Maybe it’s just a sex thing. He imagines sucking Bard’s dick instead, and that, for some reason, is a little easier for him to tackle. He’s not sure _why,_ but dick-sucking feels like a more manageable act to consider engaging in. _Not_ that it would ever happen, though, because Bard is probably straight, and more importantly, he’s Bofur’s _employer._ It’s just not appropriate. So Bofur manages to successfully avoid all thoughts of kissing _or_ dick-sucking entirely for his first week on the job, but then they start to spend time together outside their work days, and _everything_ changes. 

In Bofur’s defense, _Bard_ is the one who suggests they hang out. 

It’s a gloomy Wednesday, wet with the sort of rain that’s not quite rain as much as it’s just very drooly fog that settles over the bay in a gray-black quilt. Bofur doesn’t bring an umbrella when he takes the trash out because there are no actual _droplets_ hitting the pavement, but he still comes back damp and chilled to the bone all the same, so he beds down on the couch under a tattered Oakland A’s blanket to watch TV until Bard returns from his Whole Foods shift. 

He arrives at the exact moment the fog finally swells to the point of bursting and a downpour begins. “Shit! It caught you, didn’t it?” Bofur asks as he flings the door open to catch Bard wringing his hair out on the porch, thoroughly drenched. 

“Just as I was getting out of the car,” Bard says, mouth twisting with one of his trademark self-deprecating smiles. “S’fine, though, I don’t have to work the White Horse tonight. If I catch a break, the universe makes sure to piss on me, I guess. But that’s alright.” 

He looks up, eyes catching and holding Bofur’s with a sudden dark clarity, rain-wet cheekbones looking especially sharp under the yellow glow of the porch light. “Are you doing anything tonight? You could stay for a drink, if you wanted.” 

And there’s such a loneliness to his voice that Bofur doesn’t think twice before raising his eyebrows in surprise and blurting, “I’d _love_ a drink! God, been wanting one all day.” 

It’s not until they’re sitting on the couch—Bard in a pair of threadbare gray sweats and a stained, very soft-looking Fruit of the Loom tee he changed into—that Bofur realizes this was _perhaps_ not the best idea. His eyes keep snagging and lingering in places they shouldn’t. The ditch of Bard’s elbow. His nipples, which Bofur can see through his shirt because they’re hard, as he’s probably still cold from getting caught in the rain. His throat, where his pulse is a steady, flickering, observable thing under the loose gather of middle-aged skin. Bofur sips his scotch and feels his cheeks heat up, wonders if the mess he’s feeling is written on his face, if Bard can tell just by _looking_ at him all the confusion these stupid, mundane things are stirring up in his body like bruises. 

“How were the kids today? Did Tilda’s allergies get better?” he asks, bare feet kicked up onto the coffee table, everything about his body so relaxed and nonchalant that Bofur feels like he’s intruding, at the same time he feels lucky that he’s _allowed_ to witness such a thing without it becoming an intrusion. 

“She sniffled a bit on the way to school, but by the time I got them, it’d cleared right up,” he says, tipsy enough already with the way he’s been chugging that he can feel his filters lifting, words about to spill in a deluge just to fill the space, to cover his tracks, to hide the knot in his gut right behind his lungs. “They were all so fucking _funny_ today. Bain accidentally stepped on one of Tilda’s Littlest Pet Shop brushes, and she pitched a fit, so I superglued it. They thought that was magic,the superglue, so we had a bit of a toy hospital. I fixed one of Sigrid’s old Breyer horses...she said it was her mom’s? She seemed happy about that, but I can never tell with her, you know, she’s so quiet,” he babbles, throat getting tight with regret the _second_ that he mentions Bard’s late wife, and he notices something startled flutter in the black of Bard’s eyes, like he was caught off guard. Bofur winces. He’s not good with sensitive stuff, even at the best of times. His heart is forever in the right place, but he has a big mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t—“

“No! No...no, it’s fine. I’m not one of those widowers, we talk about her. I’m just—I’m glad you fixed the horse. I tried way back when it happened and couldn’t do it. I think my hands shook too much,” he says, frowning. “My hands used to shake a lot. They’re better now.” 

“Good, I’m glad, glad you’re a steady-handed fellow again,” Bofur says awkwardly, wishing he knew how the fuck to talk about serious things. Part of why he’s so good at hanging around kids, he thinks, is that he’s at his best when he can deflect and dissipate tension with a smile or a joke, a silly song or a well-timed pun. He knows how to talk about feelings—he _has_ them, after all, too many of them most of the time. But it’s not a _talent_ of his. It always leaves him hot-faced and hurting. “And how was your day?” he asks, desperate for something concrete to latch onto, a fork in the road that he can hurtle down. “Dwalin tells me you’re quite a shit-stirrer at Ye Olde Whole Foods,” he adds, waggling his eyebrows. 

Bard smiles, tilting his head so a wet chunk of hair brushes over his own shoulder. “Not intentionally. It’s just that Alfrid, my awful, lowlife, boot-licking assistant manager, has it out for me,” he sighs. “My _actual_ manager doesn’t do shit, he’s really only the boss in name. So Alfrid pulls strings, abuses power, the usual. Makes up rules to fire people he doesn’t like. Cuts hours. Bends policy. I don’t stand for that sort of treatment, so I’m always on his shit list. I’m lucky so many customers like me, otherwise I’d be on the chopping block, for sure.” 

“Admirable, a man of the masses,” Bofur says, nodding. “And I feel you. Before you hired me, I’d just gotten my ass fired from Rasputin’s for standing up to management about ripping off customers. I was the new kid, though, so they had no problem sending me packing.” 

“Good for you,” Bard says, holding up his glass with the last meager remnants of his scotch still shining golden in the bottom. “Cheers to rabble-rousing on behalf of the people.” 

“Hear, hear!” Bofur says cheerfully, and their knuckles brush as they clink their glasses together. 

“You should tell Dwalin to come to my secret meetings,” Bard says after he finishes off his drink, eyes flashing. “I’m trying to figure out how to unionize, and I could use all the help I could get. I feel like he’s on the right side of things.” 

“Dwalin would be down for that, for sure,” Bofur agrees, coughing as he throws back the last of his scotch, too. It burns on the way down, and before he has a chance to ask for more _or_ to think better of it, Bard is already taking his glass from him and refilling it. “Hey,” Bofur says, narrowing his eyes even as he gratefully accepts the offering. “I have to drive home, you know.” 

“You don’t _have_ to,” Bard says, something almost _playful_ in his voice. “But you _do_ have to take the kids to school in the morning. You could just sleep here, if you wanted. I have a spare toothbrush. And this very glamorous couch.” He pats the space between their bodies, and Bofur stares at his hand where it braces in the charged vacancy, the loose shift of the skin over his knuckles burnt into his mind as his stomach drops, hard and sudden. 

He clears his throat. “You wouldn’t mind?” he asks. 

“No, not at all. I almost feel like I owe it to you, given all the driving you’ve done for me. It will save you some gas, right?” 

And Bofur can’t argue with that, not when he’s tipsy, so he just smiles. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” 

Bard smiles and tops off his own glass. “You don’t have a girlfriend or anything back at the house who’ll miss you?” he asks, and it hooks right through Bofur’s gut, makes him squirm. A nervous laugh bubbles up and out of him because it’s all he knows how to do. 

“God, no, no girlfriend, not in a very, very many years,” he mumbles, making a face. He throws back some of his drink before grimacing and adding, “and _no_ one at the house will miss me right now, I promise you that.” 

“Hmm,” Bard murmurs, crossing his ankles. “Am I reading too much into that, or do I detect a note of bitterness?” 

Bofur snorts, feeling quite picked apart, like a roadkill carcass surrounded by buzzards. It makes him nervous that Bard is the sort of man who’s attuned to voice tones, implicit meanings, body language—it makes secrets that much harder to hide. Bard has probably _noticed_ the way Bofur looks at his lips, so as he opens his mouth to speak, he stares resolutely at a stain on the couch upholstery instead. “You’re not reading too much into it, you’re right on the nose, unfortunately,” he admits, drilling his finger into the stain, picking at it. He thinks it might be applesauce, which checks out because Bain is the messiest eater he’s ever met. He’s picky so he mostly just spreads things all over his face so that he doesn’t have to swallow them. “The house where Dwalin and I live is _filled_ with guys. There’s between ten and thirteen of us on any given day, people always coming, leaving, what have you. It’s never quiet, never lonely. Or it shouldn’t be, but lately…I dunno. “ 

“Feeling lonely in crowded rooms,” Bard says quietly, gaze fixed on the black, empty screen of the shut-off TV across the room from them. “I feel you on that.” 

Perhaps it’s the scotch, or the rain, or the nature of the conversation. The drive Bofur feels unfurling in his chest to seek connection even when it could just be an illusion, something sad and desperate born from the way he feels whenever he makes Bard smile. Whatever it is, instead of steering the conversation back to something shallow and idle, Bofur swallows thickly and tells the truth. “My next-door neighbor at the house moved in at the beginning of the summer, and we got really close, really fast. Would smoke and hang out most days after he got back from work, doing nothing but like. Sharing space. And then he and my bandmate, who we both rent from, Thorin. They started dating. Which, like, good for them! I’m not bitter about _that_ bit, I don’t think. But I guess I feel sort of—abandoned? And _annoyed_ , all the time, because they’re _constantly_ fucking at top volume and making out in front of everyone in the middle of conversations and—I don’t know. Maybe I’m just fucking homophobic.” 

Bard tenses a bit, purses his lips, and shifts away, and Bofur wonders if he said something wrong, if he came off too raw, too vulnerable. If they weren’t supposed to chat about deep shit like abandonment or the potential for buried prejudices or whatever. He’s about to apologize when Bard ventures, “Would you still feel abandoned and annoyed if one of them were a girl?” 

He cocks his head, thinking about it for a moment.

“Yeah, I think so,” Bofur admits, shrugging. “It’s not _what_ they do or the fact they’re doing it, it’s that it’s so loud and in my face all the time and also—that all my little routines have changed, I guess. Bilbo used to do the shopping with me. Thorin and I played in bands together. Now, he’s really only focusing on one of his projects, I feel like our bands are sidelined, I _never_ see one without the other, and when I do, they’re busy sucking each other’s faces off and basically ignore the rest of us, and it’s lame.” 

Bard shifts to face Bofur, propping his head up with an elbow on the back of the couch, crossing his legs under him and splaying his knees. It shouldn’t make Bofur panic, but a lick of anxiety rises in his throat as he tears his gaze away, not prepared to look at Bard dead on, the dark of his eyes impossible, like an eclipse. “You’re not homophobic,” Bard says then, swirling his scotch around in his glass so that the melting ice in it clinks rhythmically against the side. “You’re jealous.” 

He says it so plainly that Bofur’s stomach plummets. “I’m not _jealous_ ,” he says, pressing his glass into his lips, feeling it knock against his teeth because he’s clumsy right now, dizzy from how many times his heart has started speeding in his chest ever since Bard came home. “I don’t _think_ I want to be having super loud gay sex all the time. And certainly not with either of them,” he grumbles, thinking something about Shakespeare, about protesting too much, and frowning because he only _knows_ that reference because of Bilbo. 

“Okay, not the ‘gay sex’ part, then, maybe,” Bard offers, ducking his head in concession, grinning a sheepish, tipsy grin. “But the—I don’t know, the ‘having someone’ part,” he says, voice changing so abruptly, grave and thick as the last word leaves his lips. Bard clears his throat, and Bofur feels his heart tighten up defensively, a steely, terrified grip on itself so that nothing can work its way in. “I think most people are lonely,” Bard adds quietly. “And we connect over being lonely. So when one of the people, or _two_ in your case, who you connected with _stop_ being lonely—well, it hurts. It’s like a betrayal. Them leaving you behind in your loneliness.” 

It takes a few seconds for Bofur to successfully will away the vice-tight thickness in his throat so that he might speak. “Maybe,” he chokes out, chewing the inside of his lip. Then, because he feels like they’ve been talking about _him_ so much that he’s bleeding and he does not appreciate bleeding alone, he flattens out his lips in contemplation before risking a question. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your wife?” he asks, voice nothing more than breath. 

Bard nods, like he saw it coming. “Cancer, not too long after Tilda turned two. It was—it happened pretty fast. I sometimes worry that Tilda doesn’t remember her.” 

“I’m sorry,” Bofur says immediately, shifting on the couch to tuck his socked feet under himself, gaze dropping. “That’s terrible.” It’s a stupidly trite thing to say and he knows it, but at the same time, there’s nothing _else_ to say. He is sorry, and it is terrible. He thinks about reaching out to touch Bard, to squeeze his arm or shoulder in reassurance, but the mere thought of doing so makes his hand burn, so he thinks better of it. He is perhaps drunker than he realizes, drunker than he meant to be, _wants_ to be. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“It’s fine, I told you, we talk about her,” Bard reminds him. “I didn’t want to be the sort of father who couldn’t talk. We look at pictures together, we celebrate her birthday. I think it’s good for them. Especially Sigrid, she—it hit her hard. She’s still in a monthly grief group, you’ll see it when it comes up on the calendar. I did one for a while, but I haven’t been in a few years.” 

“Why not?” Bofur asks, well past the point of stopping himself from digging, picking at scabs. He just—he wants to _know_ about Bard. What still hurts, which scars still sting. He wants to _know_ , so that maybe he can find the salve. So that maybe he can clean the house room by room until he scrubs away the veneer of darkness and finds whatever crushed seedling is growing beneath the surface.

Bard is quiet for a moment, head tilted as if it takes him a moment to recall what exactly drove him away. “I think it was that I felt like I was in a different place than a lot of the other people in the group. Many of them started dating or even got married right away after losing their spouse. Which—I understand. No judgment. It was—I just wasn’t ready to move on, to not be alone.” 

“To connect with someone else over how you’re both lonely?” Bofur mumbles, cheeks hot with liquor, with something else. Too many other things to count, in fact. He fiddles with the end of his hair and then the flap of his hat, just to busy his hands so that he will not compulsively refill his drink. 

“Yes,” Bard says, looking up and smiling, flooding the room with the black of his eyes. “But now, maybe I am. Or I could be.” 

“Could be what?” 

Bard purses his lips, and Bofur tries very hard to not look, but he’s too drunk to stop himself now. The world feels hot and floaty, and the storm sounds lovely outside, the smell of fall filtering in through the still-cracked window as the dry brown grass gets flattened and sodden with rain. “Willing to connect, I mean,” Bard says, shifting again, shaking his head so that he is a hazy shape, fuzzy around the edges. There are spots of color on his cheeks, and Bofur realizes in this moment that he, too, is drunk. Meaning they probably appear hazy to each other, both drink-softened and storm-faded. “I’m dreadfully out of practice, though. Wouldn’t know how to go about dating if I tried.” 

“Luckily, you look like a retired model,” Bofur blurts, thinking that it’s easier to say things deep into one’s second glass of good liquor. “Shouldn’t be too difficult.” 

Bard laughs, though it comes out more like a sharp, strangled bark. “Long, _long_ retired,” he says before he sits up, leaning over the table to tip a single finger of scotch into both of their glasses. “To being lonely,” he says, his second toast of the night that links them together, connects them, even if it is a connection over nothing. Over shared absence, over jealousy and loss, dual empty aches in matching hungry chests. Bofur feels sick with a sudden wave of sadness, even if he’s not sure why. 

They do not touch their glasses together, this time, they only drink in silence as the wind rattles through the poplars in the backyard, as water pelts the windows and the house creaks as if it is sighing, as if it has come home, as if houses have homes they can return to at all. Still, Bofur’s fingers tingle as he throws back his scotch, as if they touched Bard’s skin to skin and still burn with the memory. 

—-

Bofur is quite rudely awoken at 7 am by a six-year-old vaulting on top of him. “Ugh,” he says, struggling to breathe under Tilda, who is positively delighted to find him on her couch and bouncing right on top of his chest in excitement. “Oi. How does a tiny little girl like you feel like a sack of potatoes, huh?” 

“You’re not wearing your hat!” she screeches, patting the top of his head, which is pounding as he blinks in the white spill of dawn light. He didn’t drink enough water last night to counterbalance the scotch.

“Oh, no! That means my head is going to fall off and roll away if I don’t have coffee in the next five minutes! Up! Off! The fate of my life depends on it,” he exclaims, scooping her up and dumping her back onto the floor, her polyester My Little Pony nightie bunching under the curl of his arm. “Go sit down at the table, I’ll get your breakfast.” 

She scampers off as he drags himself into a sitting position, rubbing at his temples. He thinks he was dreaming about Bard, but the remnants are already fading to distortion, leaving just the barest traces, the palest ghost. Dark eyes and sad, thin smiles. Bofur sighs and forces himself to stand so that he might rouse Bain and Sigrid, who will stay in bed ignoring the alarm until the very last minute when someone shakes them awake, if they have the option to. Usually, it’s Bard who wakes them up, but since Bofur’s here early, he might as well do it. He raps his knuckles on the door jamb of Bain’s room, “Hey little man,” he says. “C’mon, rise and shine, up and at-em’n all that.” 

Then he does the same to Sigrid, whose door is already ajar because she and Tilda share a room. “Good morning,” he announces through the crack. She peers at him, eyes narrowed and dirty blonde hair a mess. 

“Are you still here from the night before?” she asks in a voice that is admirably judgmental, given how groggy it sounds. “Or are you wearing the same clothes you did yesterday?” 

Bofur feels backed into a corner, like it is entirely too early for him to come up with a clever response or to deflect. He’s realizing, however, that he and Bard didn’t really discuss what they’d tell the kids in the morning about him staying over. Not that it _matters._ He just crashed on the couch because it was raining and he drank. There’s nothing to be secretive about, _he’s_ the one who’s making things weird. Still, he wishes Bard was down here with him to navigate his daughter’s question. “Your dad and I got talking last night and there was a storm, so I stayed here,” he settles on, hating the way his cheeks color incriminatingly anyway. “Saved me the drive in the morning.” 

She just groans, pulling the covers back over her head. “Very interesting,” she mumbles from her cocoon. 

Luckily, in that exact moment, Bard emerges from his own bedroom at the end of the hall in a billow of steam, newly showered and with his hair piled on top of his head in a high bun. He smells like Old Spice and pine tar soap, and Bofur is nearly _knocked_ over by the sheer _clean_ of it. He didn’t feel _particularly_ grimy waking up in yesterday’s torn jeans and his ratty Edguy shirt, but he certainly does _now._ Bard smiles and breezes past him, poking his head into Sigrid’s room on the way. “Up. And mind your own business,” he adds curtly, body so close to Bofur’s that he can _feel_ the heat from his scrubbed skin. “I know I usually already have the coffee on by the time you arrive, sorry about that,” he says then, palm brushing ever so briefly and apologetically over Bofur’s lower back, stealing his breath. _God._ It’s _way_ too early for this. “We’re a bit of a mess in the morning.” 

“ _You’re_ a mess? _I’m a_ mess, sorry m’not more helpful,” Bofur says, padding after Bard into the kitchen and watching helplessly as he punches the button on the coffee maker and kisses the top of Tilda’s head. “Let me do something.” 

“You’re fine, sit down. I’ll bring you coffee. You’ll be wrangling kids as soon as I leave in…,” he checks his watch, blinking as he cards his other hand through his hair, looking like something from a fucking commercial or maybe an 80s rom com. “Ten minutes. You’ll have plenty to do then.” 

Bofur mechanically pours Tilda some juice and cereal, at least, so that he doesn’t feel entirely useless. Then he watches with bleary eyes as Bard makes them both mugs of coffee, heart clenching up with the same feeling he _always_ gets biking past nice houses, through nice neighborhoods, on the outside of fences. _This cannot be mine, so I won’t let myself want it._

Still, he sips his coffee black, and studies the slope of Bard’s neck where it disappears into the stretched-out collar of his t-shirt, the place where droplets from the shower still cling to soft, downy hair going gray. 

Bard is mostly out the door by the time Sigrid and Bain finally plop down at the breakfast table in their somewhat rumpled school clothes. He kisses each of them on the head, telling them to be good, and Bofur reels when Bard then squeezes his shoulder before departing, like it’s his _own_ kiss, his _own_ reminder to behave himself. As soon as he’s gone, Sigrid shoots him a scathing look. 

“What?” he asks her, narrowing his eyes right back because Sigid is always more manageable when he at least pretends to treat her as an equal. “Grumpy this morning?” 

“Did you get drunk last night?” she asks, and Tilda gasps for dramatic effect, hand over her mouth. “Is that why you didn’t go home?” 

“I told you,” he says matter of factly, collecting Tilda’s bowl and dumping the milk in the sink. It’s stained a weird gray color from the off-brand Lucky Charms marshmallow dye, and that usually amuses him, but this time, he’s vaguely nauseated. “Your dad and I were talking late.” 

“About what?” she asks, stabbing her cereal with her spoon, eyes averted in mock innocence. She takes a bite then drops the utensil to raise her hands with a dramatic flourish and make air quotes. “Did you talk about ‘adult stuff’ or something?” 

Bain snorts into his breakfast because he’s ten years old, and the mere _mention_ of conversation that _could_ be sexual has the potential to send him into hysterics. Bofur rolls his eyes, even though his heart is pounding like he’s been caught. Doing what, he’s not so sure. It’s not like he’s done anything he could be caught at. “If you mean ’boring adult stuff,’ then yeah. We talked about our _jobs._ Managers…payrolls…bills…the stuff of nightmares, I suspect.” 

Thinking better of his laughter, Bain groans instead, opening his mouth to show off the mess of chewed-up cornflakes. “Ew,” he says decidedly, gagging. 

“Ew yourself,” Bofur counters, poking him in the chest. “Swallow, no one wants an eyeful of that see-food.” 

Bain grudgingly does, just as Tilda breaks out into a dramatic and entirely unprompted rendition of “Defying Gravity _,_ ”which immediately sends Sigrid packing, stalking back to her room with her book under one arm and the entire cereal box under the other. Normally, Bofur would drag her back out, but not today. He could use a morning without her eagle eyes and misguided scrutiny, so he lets her go and finishes his coffee. 

It takes a few days for him to shake the strange, lingering ache of that particular morning and the night which preceded it. It clings to his skin like dirt, pilling in the ditches of his elbows so that he must scrub vigorously when he finally gets to shower the day off, the water scalding hot like a purifying effigy. But even then, bits come back to him unbidden throughout the week: Bard asking him to stay, hair still damp from the rain. The brush of his idle fingers over the lowermost dip of Bofur’s spine as the sun rose, the dimples just above the waistline of his sagging sweatpants as he stretched. So many soft accidents. So many rough-edged intents. Bofur doesn’t know what to do with the whole mess, so he stuffs it down alongside everything else in favor of a smile or a joke. A silly song or a well-timed pun. It’s much easier that way, he thinks. 


	3. Don't Talk to Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so when Blake (my wife, for those of you who don't know, who also goes by Blake on ao3 and who is an amazing writer with lots of delicious hobbit fic) and I lived in Oakland we were extremely broke and worked multiple Jobs and as a result HARDLY EVER had days off together. One of those rare, memorable times we went to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and saw Claude the crocodile and it was very romantic. So. This is a romantic date spot imo. 
> 
> I love these two fucking idddiotttts they are so sweet! enjoy!

The weeks wear on, and talking over drinks while the kids sleep draws closer and closer to habit.

Bofur likes it, in spite of himself. He likes hearing about the ever-dramatic saga of Alfrid the assistant manager from hell. He likes having someone who’ll listen to him vent about Bilbo and Thorin’s increasingly loud shower sex. He likes the way Bard throws his head back to laugh, and he likes the ripple of his throat when he swallows. He likes how sloppily he sits on the couch when he’s well into his third cocktail, knees spread and hair down around his shoulders in a messy curtain. He likes _Bard,_ really. He knows he shouldn’t, that it’s a weird, stupid, foolish thing to feel, but it’s there all the same, so he does his best to weather the storm of it in stride. It’s just like skateboarding over a busted up sidewalk or sitting through a shitty opening band. It’s rough, but it’ll pass. 

He _could_ set better boundaries, he supposes, but it’s _hard_ when the kids want him around all the time, and Bard never says otherwise. For example, they all end up having dinner together late on Friday because Bard comes home early before Bofur finishes cooking. He’s standing by the stove and staring into a pot of boiling spaghetti, thinking about how long it’s been since Goblin Cleaver got together to practice, when Tilda suddenly shrieks, leaping from the couch to the door. “Da!” she says as Bard walks in and heaves her up into his arms. 

“You’re back early,” Bofur says from the kitchen, frantically ducking out of the frilly apron he found in the cupboard a few days ago. He’s been wearing it to cook, but it never really occurred to him that it could be _Bard’s late wife’s property_ , and the last thing he wants is for Bard to find him donning his _late wife’s property_ , so he scrambles to get it off. 

Unfortunately, Bard catches him as he wanders in with Tilda still propped on his hip, green galoshes swinging. “Don’t worry. I wear it, too. It’s technically Sigrid’s, but she wouldn’t be caught dead in it. My mother made it,” he says. 

Sigrid stomps in. “And she labors under the assumption not only six years old but also a girly girl,” says. “Did you get off early?” 

This, of course, is what Bofur is wondering, too. “I can leave dinner to you if you’d rather not pay me for crossover hours,” he offers, holding the apron up in a fist. “You can wear this.” 

Bard smiles and kisses Tilda on the cheek before setting her down. “Stay for dinner,” he says, reaching out and patting Bofur’s shoulder how he _does_ sometimes, brief and sweet and nonchalant, like touching other men does not register to him because it means nothing to him because he’s not having a fucking _gay crisis. “_ After all, you’re making it. You might as well.” 

“I don’t have to stay if you guys want to enjoy one of those rare, elusive, kids-and-dad moments or something! I can go home and microwave some leftovers,” Bofur says, even though he’s half-lying and would _really_ prefer something fresh. Bilbo’s dinners have declined in quality and frequency since classes started, and also since he stopped using food to woo Thorin because he’s clearly already _wooed._

 _“_ Stay,” Bard says firmly, dropping down to his haunches beside Tilda, curling an arm around her waist. “What do you say, should Bofur eat dinner with us or go home and eat some nasty leftovers?” 

Tilda wrinkles her nose. “Here, obviously.” 

“It’s settled, then,” Bard says easily, shrugging, dark eyes locked on Bofur’s. “You’re staying.” 

And so, he does. 

The dinner conversation centers largely around Bard’s unusually short shift. “Were you fired?” Sigrid asks, twisting noodles around her fork methodically. “Or did you quit?” 

“I got sent home,” Bard offers. “We all did. There was a _mysterious_ suitcase in the street, and someone called in a bomb threat,” he explains. “So they closed the store and sent us on our merry way.” 

“A _bomb?!”_ Tilda gasps. 

“Did it blow up?” Bain asks. He’s not eating because he rarely does unless threatened, and Bofur doesn’t feel comfortable doing such a thing when his dad is here. Instead, he just peers at him, watching Bain pick dead grass from his soccer shorts, making sure he doesn’t sneakily drop some food onto the ground like he often does, some weird ritual of picky-kid retaliation. 

“It probably wasn’t a real bomb,” Bard says, poking at a meatball with his fork. “It was probably just a suitcase, and they were being safe.” 

“Boring,” Bain grumbles. 

“Eat your food,” Bard counters quite firmly. Then he turns to Bofur, gaze softening. “This is great, by the way, thank you.” 

Bofur shrugs, stomach in knots. It’s _not_ great, it’s just spaghetti, and maybe that’s why the praise feels so weird on his skin, twisting up in his gut. “Just doing my job. Glad you got back in time to enjoy it hot off the stove instead of in those little microwaveable Tupperware bricks I leave you in the freezer.” 

“Is Bofur coming tomorrow?” Tilda interrupts, reaching over and making a sticky fist in Bofur’s hair because that’s just something she does. If she’s not belting showtunes, she’s considering a day job as a hairdresser, even though she won’t let Sigrid teach her to braid for real. 

Bofur disentangles himself from her grip. “I have the day off tomorrow.” 

Tilda pouts dramatically, shooting a distressed, pleading look at Bard. “Yeah, but can’t he _come?”_

Panicking a bit, Bofur stares in Bard’s direction as he helplessly chews, eyes wide and brows raised. He is trying to silently convey a sentiment similar to _don’t know what you all are doing tomorrow as a family, but you do not need to invite me, please don’t feel obligated._ But he can’t make himself swallow fast enough to say it out loud, so instead he’s left sitting there wide-eyed as Bard turns to him and says, “You could come, if you wanted to. We’re going to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.” 

“There’s an albino crocodile named Claude,” Bain says as if this is a tremendous and noteworthy selling point. 

“I could use some help with wrangling. These two like to run off,” Bard says, nodding to Bain and Tilda. “The second they step foot in an aquarium, they lose their minds entirely. It’s pandemonium.” 

“It’s true,” Sigrid drawls without looking up from her food. “Personally, _I’d_ appreciate someone there who was actually _paid_ to babysit.” 

“If you’re busy, no pressure,” Bard says, eyes downcast as he eats. Bofur studies him, getting lost in the act of trying to figure out what he _really_ means. He’s always doing this, though. He’s forever hesitant to take Bard’s words at face value no matter how sincere a man he knows him to be. Instead, he digs until his nails are dirty, his knuckles crusted in blood. He tries his hardest to find the cracks, the dishonesty, the lie. And if he doesn’t find anything, he just digs deeper. He can’t trust that Bard actually _enjoys_ spending time around him as much as he enjoys spending time around Bard. “We’d love to have you.” 

“I don’t—I don’t want you to have to pay me for an extra day you didn’t anticipate,” Bofur blurts after swallowing.

“It’s no problem,” Bard says easily. “Unless you have plans.”

“I don’t.” Bofur says awkwardly, even though he’s internally kicking himself. Sitting the kids while Bard is working is one thing. Going on _family trips_ with them feels like another. It feels almost like _co-parenting._ He has no idea what a normal professional boundary about this sort of thing _looks_ like, though. Do nannies sometimes go on trips? He has no fucking idea. He’s not _actually_ Mary Poppins. 

Bard smiles at him with a terrible, inscrutable warmth as Tilda cheers. “Great!” 

They don’t talk about it in detail until after the kids are tucked in and the dinner dishes have been cleaned. “Listen, you don’t really have to come to the city with us tomorrow if you’d prefer a real day off,” Bard says as he scrubs a bowl, forearms flexing distractingly in their sheen of soapy water. Bofur decidedly does _not_ stare as he dries the clean dishes and puts them away. 

“No, I’d _like_ to. Beats listening to my housemates come three times a day,” he says, stacking plates. “But I won’t go if you want some time alone with your kids. I really, really don’t want to intrude.” 

“You aren’t—you don’t,” Bard says, voice a muffled hush that makes Bofur’s insides twist up, his cheeks get hot. “I’m quite grateful for you, for how much the kids have taken to you. And it would be sincerely helpful to have you there with us tomorrow, if it’s not asking too much. I _will_ pay you. That’s not an issue.” 

“How about this: if I go, it’s under the condition that you _don’t_ pay me, so it can just feel like a fun trip to a museum instead of a weird extra day at work,” Bofur offers, trying to make light, to _joke._ But Bard’s face falls, something dark flickering over it like a nearby candle has just been snuffed out in a sudden gust of wind. 

“I couldn’t. That’s your time, your _Saturday._ You’d be sacrificing your guitar and video game and weed and—I don’t know what else you do—but your _leisure time_ to hear more showtunes, only this time sung in a cacophonous marble building. I won’t hear it, I’m paying.” 

Bofur’s not sure what comes over him, but he’s stepping in, laying his hand on Bard’s soapy forearm, which is hot and slippery under his fingers as they squeeze taut skin and ropes of sinew and muscle just beneath the maddening stretch of it. “Stop, okay, fine, you can pay me if you want. But I—I really, genuinely would like to go. Your kids are, like, m’closest friends right now, even though that’s lame.” 

Bard stays there for a moment, and for a terrifying second Bofur thinks he’s going to lean in and kiss him. But then he realizes that _he’s_ the one thinking about kissing, he’s only worried it will happen because he _wants_ it. Because he _likes_ Bard. Because he’s not just thinking about sucking his dick or whatever weird, safe fantasy he’s allotted himself, he’s thinking about his lips, the peak of them, the heat of his breath as it huffs out in a low, nervous laugh. 

Bofur lets go and steps away, fingers tingling, heart in his throat. 

Bard rubs the back of his own neck with his wet palm, making the skin there shine. “I’ll pay your entry, at least. It’s terribly overpriced.” 

“Fine,” Bofur says, leaning against the counter because he is suddenly very dizzy and very tired, this whole situation feels insurmountably confusing for him. The kitchen swims in his vision as he watches Bard open up the liquor cabinet and fish out a brand-new bottle of scotch. “You can pay for that, but I’ll attend on my own accord, thank you very much.” 

Bard pours him a glass, and they face each other in the kitchen, the air feeling stitched-taut and electric as it crackles. “To Claude, the albino crocodile,” Bard says, raising his glass. 

And, well. Bofur has nothing to do but drink to that. 

—-

The second they walk as a group into the Academy of Sciences upon Bard paying their entry, something possesses Bain and Tilda. Bain _immediately_ bolts to the massive sunken terrarium in the center of the lobby at a full sprint, and Tilda starts bouncing so rapidly and violently that Bofur suspects she might take off into the sky like a bottle rocket. Presumably before she, too, explodes in multiple directions and disappears into the crowd, Bard picks her up. “Oh, boy,” he sighs. “Told you they lose their minds.” 

“Oi, I’ll round up Bain,” Bofur offers, weaving through the masses of families to what he’s fairly sure is Claude the albino crocodile’s enclosure. Sure enough, Bain is pressed up against the siding, arms draped over the railing and eyes wide with wonder. Bofur joins him in staring down into the pit, which smells overwhelmingly like greenhouse and reptile water. It’s a weird, humid, oddly comforting smell that brings him back to when Bifur briefly had a pet snake. Bofur doesn’t really remember what happened to the snake itself, but he _does_ remember feeding it little frozen mice for crowds of horrified bystanders when they’d throw house parties. “So this is your friend,” he says, knocking his shoulder into Bain’s. 

“Have you ever seen an albino crocodile before?” Bain asks, leaning further over the railing, so much so that Bofur makes a fist in the back of his t-shirt to pull him back before they get yelled at. Or before he falls in and becomes crocodile food. 

“Nope, believe it or not, this is the first one,” Bofur admits. “Pretty spectacular beastie he is, too. Thank you for bullying me into coming.” 

_“I_ didn’t,” Bain argues, gaze still fixed upon Claude, who is spread out on a rock like a vast white piece of driftwood, unmoving save for a few very, very slow blinks. He looks peaceful, for a crocodile. Peaceful or stoned. “ _Da_ did, he’s the one who wanted you to come,” he says, tone distinctly nonchalant and uncaring in the way that only a child can be. Because, of course, this distinction is not important to _him._ He’s just observing things as he sees them. 

Bofur, on the other hand, is sweating. He quite suddenly loses any chance he ever had at matching Claude’s level of peace. He coughs, wondering if grilling a ten-year-old for information about their _dad’s_ dating history is at all appropriate. He decides it’s not and instead just mumbles an awkward, “He did, did he?” 

Bain shoots Bofur a look like he’s stupid before saying, “Yeah, duh.” Then, clearly not caring to elaborate further on the matter, he grabs Bofur’s elbow and starts to drag him toward the aquariums. “C’mon, I wanna see the eels.” 

Bofur follows, left to grapple with the possibility that Bard _truly_ wants him there as _company_ and not just as a babysitter. Left to grapple it alone in a crowded room, as always. 

The place is _packed._ Bard is fairly tall, but so are a million other people here, which means that Bofur’s usual scan for a chocolate-brown man-bun isn’t working. He checks out fish with Bain for a while, stopping him from tapping on the glass, reading the placards about various crustaceans, and trying his hardest to babysit at the same time he’s actively attempting to find Bard. _Finally,_ a haggard-looking mom walks up to him and taps him gently on the shoulder. “Excuse me! I noticed you were looking for your husband and little girls, they’re right over here by the shrimp tank. I saw you all walk in together, just a beautiful family.” 

Bofur blushes so hard that it almost makes him dizzy. “Um, thanks,” he mumbles, tipping his hat to her as she smiles in that dreamy, San Francisco, white-woman way before she returns to her own family. Bain, luckily, was too engrossed in the plethora of aquatic life surrounding them to overhear the exchange, so at least Bofur doesn’t have to do damage control on that front. “C’mon, laddie, let’s rejoin forces with your dad.”

“But the eels!” Bain moans. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to see the freaking eels,” Bofur promises, grabbing Bain by his narrow, bony shoulders and marching him across the room. “But first...your dad, your sisters, they await, monsieur.” 

Bard’s smile is a warm and worn-out thing amid so much chaos, blue tinted in the glow of a fish tank. “There you two are! We thought you’d run off without us for good.” 

“Nah, we just paid homage to Claude the Tyrannical, the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities,” Bofur says, totally unable to shake the sound of that woman’s thready voice stretched over the word _your husband_ out of his mind. He purses his lips, hooking a finger through a hole in the hem of his favorite shirt, an ancient thing with the _Holy Diver_ art silk-screened onto it in faded plastic. Then he looks at Bard, his clean, black Fruit of the Loom t-shirt tucked into jeans, his high-top Converse scuffed to shit but not falling apart. And, of course, his terribly, _insufferably_ handsome face and graying hair pulled up into his usual half-bun. It’s so fucking _flattering,_ really, that some stranger in the middle of Golden Gate Park would look at _Bofur_ in his ushanka and torn pants and think that he _belonged_ with this man. That he was good enough for him. The mere thought makes him blush again, so he throws an arm around Bain’s neck and drags him in to mess up his hair so that his hands have _something_ to do. “This guy needs to see some eels before he falls over and perishes from eel-deprivation-induced catatonia.” 

And so, they find the eel tank. The kids stand rapt, faces pressed to the glass front while adults mill around by the benches a foot or so away, checking their phones. Bofur keeps stealing looks at Bard and thinking about how fucking absurd it is that they were mistaken for a couple, but just when he’s considering _telling_ him about the mistake and making a grand joke of it all, _it happens again._ It comes from another new-age mom-type, but this time she’s clearly a lesbian, which makes Bofur feel a little less weird about it at the same time it freaks him out more. He keeps wanting to, like, sneak a peek at himself in a mirror to look for some _physical_ marker, something that’s giving him away. Some psychological version of taking a subtle whiff from his armpit to check if his deodorant is working. 

“God, I wish my wife was here to help me with _our_ three. You’re lucky you two have a day off together, I always end up on weekend duty because she works at a rec center,” the woman says, a baby in one arm, a toddler in a stroller, and a little boy Tilda’s age hooking his fingers in her belt. “How old are they? Such cute kids!” 

Bard stares, caught _completely_ off guard just like Bofur was the first time, his face written into a puzzled, blinking mess. Luckily, Bofur has been thinking about nothing _but_ the initial incident ever since it happened, so he is _prepared_. He recklessly slides an arm around Bard’s lower back, palm tingling where it cups his hip through soft cotton. 

“Tilda, the little one, is six going on thirty-five…Bain is ten, and Sigrid over there is thirteen. Also going on thirty-five, if I’m honest,” he rattles off, turning to Bard and shooting him a dopey smile. “Right, honey?” 

And it’s a joke, he _means_ it as a joke, of fucking _course_ it’s a joke. But Bard does not laugh and shove him off and correct the woman like Bofur assumes he will. Instead, his eyes flicker, something bright and mischievous coursing through the black of them before he relaxes in the curl of Bofur’s arm and shifts closer, their sides bumping, warm and close. “They might _all_ be going on thirty-five, really.” 

The woman laughs just as her toddler starts to squirm and fuss. “You’ll be on your own, then, when they all move out and get corporate jobs,” she teases. “You have a blessed day.” 

And then she’s off, but Bofur is still clinging to Bard’s side, fingers digging into the heat of his skin in an increasingly tight and paranoid claw. Once she’s gone, Bard throws his head back and lets out a breathless laugh, pulling away only to dip back in, one hand spread wide on Bofur’s shoulder, bracing there as he stumbles. “I think we just got mistaken as a couple.” 

“We absolutely did. Happened to me earlier, too, when I was bringing Bain back from his crocodile-trance. I guess two forty-year-old men with a handful of kids can only be read one way in San Francisco,” Bofur says, shrugging, pretending he doesn’t feel like he’s falling apart. Bard lets him go, and his heart aches a little as that strong, lovely hand lifts and falls to his side. _Jesus._ He’s into this so much fucking deeper than he knows what to do with.

After the eels, they see sharks, rays, and so many tropical fish that Bofur feels like he’s in the fucking _Little Mermaid_. They even touch sea cucumbers and sea urchins and a fat red starfish in the tide pool touch tank. They’re slimy and prickly and fairly leatheresque, respectively, but Bofur can hardly recall any of it, he just keeps thinking about Bard’s skin separated from his palm by a single layer of cotton, hot and soft. Bard’s dark eyes twinkling in mirth as he sidled up against him, like they were sharing some unspeakable secret, unified in silence. 

—-

It’s a weird day that culminates in a weird night. Bofur keeps trying to figure out when he should leave, _if_ he should leave, but Bard just continues extending invitations. To ice cream in the park. To a takeout dinner after the fact. To stay for a while once the kids are asleep and split a bottle of wine on the newly functional porch swing. Bofur doesn't know how to say _no_ to any of it, really, but worse than that, he doesn’t _want_ to. It feels good, playing house with Bard, learning small seemingly insignificant things about him, like the fact that he has a scar from a kayaking accident but still likes to go out on the Russian River when he has time. That he actually enjoys metal—mostly stuff from the ‘70s and ‘80s, though he _says_ he could be convinced otherwise. Or, _open to persuasion_ was the phrase he used, actually. It makes Bofur’s cheeks hot, forces him to avert his gaze down to the weathered boards of the porch and his Docs, off-white in their sheen of dust under the butter-yellow glow of the single naked bulb by the door. 

_I’ll persuade you, then,_ he had risked saying, though he couldn’t look up as he said it. It was too much. Bard only hummed in response and refilled his own glass. He’s been drinking most of the bottle since Bofur _really_ should drive home tonight. He should stop sleeping on couches, begging for scraps, stealing glances at impossible lives through dirty windows. 

But when he lets himself back into the House of Durin ten minutes before midnight, he doesn’t feel right _there,_ either. It smells like curry paste and stale beer, and he wrinkles his nose, palms sticky from the doorknob, heart weird and lead-heavy in his chest. “Hey!” Bombur says as soon as he’s inside, grinning cheerily from the couch where he’s sitting with Dori, Gloin, and the remnants of one of those Stop & Shop bakery ready-made cakes that’s mostly grainy frosting. Their guitars are propped up against the coffee table and couch, like they were gearing up to jam. “We were _just_ talking about you.” 

“Shit,” Bofur gripes, raising his eyebrows and shooting a cheeky grin at his brother. “About what a working man I’ve become?” 

“Yeah, that, and we’re taking bets on whether or not there’s a _lady_ involved,” Gloin coos, waggling his thick eyebrows and holding up a rumpled twenty-dollar bill. “I say there is. Hot suburban neighbor, something like that.” 

Bofur rolls his eyes before shrugging out of his jacket and pitching it across the living room. It’s heavy with pins, so it actually manages to effectively shut Gloin up, at least for the time being. 

“There’s _no_ lady, fuck off,” he says, hopping onto one of the sagging ottomans and crossing his legs under him after he kicks off his boots. “Are you guys playing? I haven't played in _days._ A week, maybe.” 

“Yeah, we were dicking around, thinking about ordering a pizza, writing a little,” Gloin counters, tossing the jacket back, which lands heavily in Bofur’s lap. “You’re welcome to join. Especially if you spill the details on your new lady friend.” 

“I—there _really_ is no lady friend, sorry to disappoint,” he says with a grin he hopes is so lacking in coyness that they _leave him alone._ Unfortunately, Dori and Bomber keep exchanging knowing glances and elbowing each other while they demolish the rest of their cake. Bofur narrows his eyes, staring at the bit of white frosting clinging to Bomber’s red beard, and finally—-he just gives up. Because it's easier to provide them with what they want than it is to hide the truth. Because it's easier to _lie_ than to confess to the _real_ issue at hand: the vines of confusion and self-doubt twisting in his chest, the realization that he might want something he’s never prepared himself for the reality of wanting before. That he might want something he _can’t have._ “Okkkkayyyy, fucking _fine._ Assholes. There’s a girl, and she’s lovely and way out of my league, so it’s never going _anywhere.”_

They all start yelling and crowing and high-fiving, and his brother grudgingly hands a twenty over to the other two, making a face that quickly dissolves into laughter. “We knew it,” Dori says smugly, picking up his Les Paul and laying it over his knees to fiddle with the tuning pegs. “Ye had a look about you. Something in the eyes. Something far away.” 

Bofur flops back into his chair, groaning. “Told you now, but s’never going anywhere. She—she lives in South Berkeley and looks like a model.” 

“Why are you getting so down on yourself!?” Gloin demands to know. “You’re a charmer, Bofur, you’ll make it work.” 

“Not this time,” he gripes, suddenly realizing that it actually feels sort of _good_ to talk about it, even if no one in the room really _understands_ the depth, the complexity. The odd, muted pain that comes with not just feeling something for someone but feeling something so _unexpected_ for someone. Having to embark upon a journey of self-discovery _alongside_ the whole unrequited affection bit, too. Still, he presses on, seeing what he can get away with. “M’telling you, boys, she’s something else. Long dark hair. Darker eyes. Legs for miles. The nicest hands.” He pauses for a moment, gaze sweeping to the ceiling before he wrinkles up his nose and adds, “Perfect tits,” just for good measure. Gloin cackles, and Dori smiles appreciatively and complacently, nodding to himself while Bomber steals cake right off his plate with a fork. Their validation eggs Bofur on, so he leans forward and continues, galvanized with the same excitement he feels whenever he tells a story to the kids based on an Azog the Defiler song: it’s not what _happened,_ and it’s not _his_ to tell. But _goddamn_ is he gonna sell it like he spun it from the fabric of his very soul. “She’s also wicked smart and kind and…noble, I guess. She stands up for what’s right, even though it brings her nothing but shit, you know? And we can talk for hours about nothing, and the time just—poof! Flies right by. And she’s an amazing mother.” 

“A milf!” Bomber says jovially through his mouthful of cake, spewing crumbs. “A hot milf with perfect tits. Shit, she _is_ out of your league.” 

“I told you!” Bofur says. “It’s hopeless, mates, I’m stuck drooling like a dog after a hot milf with perfect tits. Who’s _taller_ than me. I’m just the lame nanny next door, humping her leg.” 

The mere mention of tall women makes Gloin put on Amon Amarth’s “Stand Up To Go Down,” and then everyone gives Bofur a good-natured hard time while they shred along jokingly with the chords, licking crumbs from their plates shamelessly. For a moment, Bofur remembers why he loves the House of Durin so much, why he belongs here, why these guys, even if they’re gross and rude and messy and meddlesome, are his family. He sighs, sagging into the ripped upholstery of the ottoman. “I missed you all.” 

“Spending too much time chasing tail,” Gloin says knowingly. 

“Yeah, just chasing, though. Don’t worry, I’ll always come sulking back here with my _own_ tail between my legs, no matter what happens. No matter what hot milf rejects me,” he says, gesturing for the guitar that’s propped closest to his brother. “Hey, gimme that. Let’s write some shit.” 

And so they pick out melodies and jot down nonsense until it’s almost dawn, passing around blunts and debating which metal guitarist of the ‘80s _truly_ deserves the title of _best ‘80s metal guitarist._ When Bofur finally falls into bed, his throat is sore and his eyes are stinging, but he feels _better,_ overall. He might not have told his friends anything _concretely_ about Bard, but he at _least_ got to vent about the condition of wanting something—or someone—impossible. The knot in his chest that’s been ever-tightening since he took the job is weed- and guitar-loosened, if only ever so slightly. And when he sleeps, it’s the first time in weeks that he does not dream of whip-tongued kids or their tired-eyed father or spiny lettuce stalks prickling his palms as he uproots them, or even of an albino crocodile sleeping in a pit in a marble floor. He dreams of nothing, and for that, he is grateful. 

—-

When Monday rolls around, Bofur thinks _maybe_ all he needed was that quality jam session and some equally quality weed to knock him free from the condition of thinking entirely too much about Bard’s clavicles. 

Unfortunately, he has no such luck. Bard is _just_ as stupidly attractive as he was on Saturday, and Bofur is _just_ as fucked up about it. He spends the whole day obsessively worrying that he’s too obvious and therefore creepy as he builds an infuriatingly shitty bookshelf from Ikea to replace the broken one in Sigrid’s room. Usually, he’s quite good with a hammer, but he accidentally smashes his thumb _twice,_ he’s so distracted. It sucks. He’s just finished icing it when Bard gets home after his White Horse shift, the bags beneath his eyes heavier than usual, swollen as if he has been crying. The mere thought makes Bofur’s insides writhe uncomfortably, and he doesn't even realize he’s planning on mentioning it until the words are already out of his mouth. “Long night?” he asks, meeting Bard at the door, holding it open for him.

“Too long,” Bard mumbles. “Sometimes—ugh, it’s going to sound so stupid,” he says as he shoulders in, hanging up his brown corduroy jacket and heading straight for his liquor cabinet. “But sometimes, I forget she’s dead, even though it’s been years. And I think subconsciously that I’m coming home to her. To vent about my day and lay my head in her lap while she played with my hair. And I was halfway back to the house this evening when I remembered.” 

It hits Bofur cold and sudden like a snowball, the hard-packed chill of it melting down his collar, making him shiver. It hurts. Not just Bard’s sadness, but the ache of his own inevitable inadequacy. The knowledge—the _certainty—_ that he is a disappointment in comparison to the memory of Bard’s wife. “Shit,” he says, shaking his head, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. He stops dead in his tracks, hovering awkwardly outside the threshold of the kitchen as he watches Bard pour himself a drink, standing on carpet while Bard stands on tile, worlds away. “I’m—m’terribly sorry, mate. You deserve someone much prettier to come home to than your babysitter and his stupid mustache.” 

He expects it to elicit a reluctant laugh, at least, but instead Bard just looks up from the counter, eyes flashing. “God, no,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to—fuck.” He scrubs his palm over his mouth and gets out another glass from the cupboard to slosh a few fingers of cheap whiskey into. “It’s been so much _better_ since you started looking after the kids. These sorts of nights—when I forget. Or, I don’t know, remember too hard, too late…I used to just come home to an empty house where I’d drink alone. Trying to suck it up or stuff it down so the kids didn’t know come morning. But now…it’s just. It’s so much easier, knowing that someone is here. To talk to. To take care of things.” 

Bofur’s stomach lurches, and he makes himself walk into the kitchen to take the drink even though he _really_ resolved he wouldn’t stay tonight and make himself more confused than he already is. “I _want_ to help,” he murmurs, voice much softer than he means it to be, Much softer than it's ever been in his whole life, maybe. His hand is shaking as he fits it around his glass. “You can tell me—if there’s anything that makes it easier, I mean. Anything you need, m’here,” he says sincerely, meaning it. Meaning it so _fucking_ much that his pulse is speeding in his veins, like his blood is afraid, like his blood _knows_ how far he’d go, how much he’d give. 

The corner of Bard’s mouth twists into a funny smile, and he shakes his head, eyes dark and unreadable in this way that makes Bofur’s cheeks heat up. “Where did you come from?” he asks then, after a long, thoughtful sip of his whiskey. 

Bofur is caught quite off guard at that. His gut plummets, and he takes a step back, so that he is leaning against the counter with his legs crossed at the ankle, eyes fixed on a stray piece of uncooked pasta on the floor, so that he does not have to burn up in Bard’s gaze. “Up the hill,” he jokes, jerking his head in the general direction of campus. “Told ya, me and Dwalin live in a giant old house on Frat Row with a million other guys. Sandwiched right between actual frats, s’awful, really. When I get up in the morning to come get the kids, sometimes they’re still partying from the night before. Once there was an inflatable pool full of jello.” 

Bard snorts. “No,” he says. “I know where you _live,_ I mean—I feel like I don’t know a single thing about you _except_ where you live. Where do _you_ come from? What’s your story? How did you end up here in my life right when I fucking needed you?” 

Bofur feels his mouth go dry, his heart stutter and trip in his chest. _God._ He presses the lip of his glass to his mouth and licks the bitter, turpentine bite of the whiskey off it before admitting, “M’afraid there’s not much to tell. I—I mean, I’ve lived in California my whole life, basically. Grew up in one of those industrial warehouse towns off 680. My dad left, my mom drank, and as soon as I turned sixteen, my cousin Bifur, who was living in the bay area as a tour rider for some metal bands, told me and my brother that we could move in and help out, and well—that’s all she wrote. Iron Maiden saved me, and I’ve been kicking around from gig to gig, learning whatever instrument I can ever since.” 

He risks looking up, and Bard is smiling soft and warm and distant, which is the worst fucking thing. It always makes his breath catch, his stomach drop. He throws back some whiskey, but the burn in his throat does nothing to counter the burn of everything else. 

“And you—have you ever wanted anything more? Or, well, not _more,_ it’s a fine life, a good life. I’m only wondering…,” Bard trails off, gaze shifting somewhere indistinct, boring holes into the artwork on the fridge, the magnets framing it. “If you’ve thought about a different sort of future.” 

Bard does not pose it as a question, and as a result, Bofur is not sure at all how to answer. His chest hurts, and part of him wants to confess, wants to tremble up a breathless, haunted laugh and admit, _god, yes, no matter how much I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise, there’s some shrunken, desiccated bit of my heart that wants something picture perfect. A family. A California king. A garden. A porch swing. A home._ But if he actually imagines saying it _out loud,_ his stomach swoops so dramatically that it’s nauseating. He doesn’t want to seem _pitiful,_ not to Bard. Like he’s envious or bitter. So instead, he forces himself to shrug and grin because it’s what he does best. “I don’t know, if m’honest. I’ve never been in a place where I _could_ have anything else, so I’ve never considered it. When you’re a roadie, you’re on the road. And when you play in bands, you’re on the road. And I’ve just never been good at anything else, really, never really belonged anywhere, and that’s—it’s fine, by me.” 

“Hm,” Bard says, smiling briefly and somewhat sadly against the rim of his glass. “I think you’re good at plenty. Fixing model horses. Telling fantasy stories. Building bookshelves, apparently,” he says, gesturing loosely toward the remains of the Ikea packaging, which are still in the living room, half-cloaked in shadow. “A man of many talents.” 

“Thank you,” Bofur says, setting his drink down on the counter so that he can launch into a deep, theatrical bow. “Guess I’m a real catch, huh? Mender of toys and builder of furniture. I told you the first time I met you, m’at your service.” He’s getting ahead of himself, a little drunk and a little dizzy and maybe even a little reckless because he can see the gray in Bard’s hair so well under the fluorescent lights in the kitchen, the lines framing his eyes especially pronounced, and that _does_ something to Bofur. Makes him sting in places where he cannot rub salve. “I can even let you put your head in my lap and play with your hair, if you’d like.” 

Bard finishes off his whiskey, throat bobbing as he winces at the bitterness. “You shouldn’t say stuff you don’t mean,” he says then, walking to the sink and rinsing his glass out before setting it on the drying rack with a clink. “I’m going to head to bed,” he announces then with a note of finality, brows arched. Then he nods to Bofur’s glass. “You should stay over. Or at least until you sober up.” 

Bofur stares, baffled by the sudden shift in tone, Bard’s declaration that he is going to sleep after he’s spilled so much truth on the floor like wine. Usually, they stay awake drinking together for at least an _hour_ if it’s one of those nights, and never does Bofur feel like he’s overstaying his welcome, like he’s _invading._ But tonight, or at least right _now,_ he does. He feels like something is moving too swiftly for him, a train slamming by and leaving him upon the platform, gasping in the hot, dusty steam-engine exhaust. 

“Okay, alright, gotcha,” he says, offering a weird, stilted wave that Bard does not see because he’s walking to his room, turning his back, and disappearing into the dark hallway like a ghost. “Good night, I guess.” 

And it is a long time, after that, before he feels sober. Longer still, when he finally sleeps. 


	4. Holy Diver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohh hhooo boyyyyyoooo the moment we've been waiting for!!! Or perhaps one of many moments because tbh these characters are so disastrously bad at communicating it's gonna take them a little while to figure out what they want and that they can actually have it. 
> 
> Minor warning for this chapter! Sexy stuff happens while under the influence of marijuana. I know some people are not comfortable with substance altered sex as it's more difficult to consent. I don't think this feels in any way dubiously consensual but still! I just wanted to warn in case any readers are sensitive to that <3 
> 
> ENJOYY!!!

Nothing happens. The sky doesn’t fall, Bofur does not get fired, and Bard acts like nothing happened the next time they lock eyes, as if all secrets and offers made after midnight where whiskey is involved are to be forgotten in the liminal space between days. Instead, it is a week like any other: Bofur spends his days replacing the pithy, rotted fence posts in the backyard with new lumber and learning Marius’s part to a series of duets so that Tilda will stop bothering him about making up the words when he accompanies her. After school, he helps everyone with their homework except Sigrid, of course, who would refuse his assistance even _if_ he knew a single thing she didn’t, but he’s pretty sure she’s smarter than him, so. In an attempt to stay respectable and relevant, he takes her some Anne McCaffrey books from Bilbo’s library on his recommendation as an offering. He also lets her help him outside and use the power drill a few times, which she is _very_ excited about, since none of the other kids are allowed such privileges. He remains in good standing with Bard’s children and therefore with Bard. 

But as September wanes on, his feelings press upon him more intently, a steadily increasing pressure that he’s powerless to ignore. The thing is, their relationship is a far cry from exclusively professional at this point. They hang out. They drink together. They talk about their _lives._ It wouldn’t be _entirely_ outrageous for Bofur to make the most tentative, careful, unassuming move, he thinks. Or even to ask Bard if he’s ever dated or kissed or _thought_ about doing anything with a man before. 

He always talks himself out of it in the end, but that doesn't stop him from thinking about it too much. As he cooks, as he cleans, as he hammers, as he lies down to sleep at the House of Durin with his aching feet propped up on a heap of dirty laundry. He even considers talking to Thorin or Bilbo (or to ThorinandBilbo, the inseparable unit of near-pornographic horror they’ve morphed into) for advice on the matter, but whenever he’s around them, he ultimately thinks better of it. They’re too wrapped up in each other, after all, and furthermore, he realizes he sort of _likes_ having a secret, something dear and silent and scandalous to keep to himself, tucked into one of the zipper pockets of his leather jacket. He doesn’t _want_ anyone to know, not yet. The second the reality of Bard, the not-milf version of him, anyway, touches the air, Bofur worries it will become tarnished. An embarrassing, filthy, transgressive desire that he’s hiding instead of a fun, maddening, schoolboy crush that makes him feel young. Or much younger than he _is,_ anyway. 

So he says nothing. He keeps it close to him instead, like a key on his keyring, familiar in the shape of his palm. 

That week, Bofur learns more about pre-algebra than he has ever had cause to learn in his _life_. He has no idea why a ten-year-old is already learning pre-algebra in the first place, it feels stupidly accelerated in his opinion. He’s pretty sure he didn't do this stuff until high school. Still, he tries his best to help Bain. He makes up crude, gross pneumonic devices for Bain to memorize his equations, and it seems to do the trick, somehow, because Bain gets a B+ on his math quiz on Thursday. To celebrate, they all go out to a vegan soul food place in Jack London Square that’s so mind-blowingly magical and delicious that Bofur _actually_ thinks about going vegan for the delirious hour or so he and Bard split a beer, sitting on the same side of the booth and laughing at each other’s stories about how Oakland _used_ to be while the kids eat dessert. It’s weird, how anything seems possible when the air smells like the sea and anyone who witnesses them together thinks they’re a family. Bofur lets his knee press against Bard’s under the table idly, an almost accident, and Bard does not pull or push away. 

As they walk to the car amid fog, the chill of October only several days away, Bofur can’t help but _wonder._ He’s a hopeful, full-of-folly, optimistic person, after all. Even when it’s stupid. _Especially_ when its stupid. Later that night on the porch, once everyone is tucked in and Bofur is putting off leaving, Bard gazes out on the streaky, starless night, mouth flattened out into a line. “I can’t remember if I told you or not, but you don't need to pick the kids up tomorrow from school. My mom is taking them to a theme park to celebrate the month of good grades on Saturday, so she’s got it. They'll be spending the night in Marin, and I’ll have a night of peace to myself, for once,” he murmurs without looking at Bofur. He’s in a white button-up shirt and the underarms are sweat-stained, but Bofur cannot stop staring and imagining running his fingers over the slightly yellowed fabric, worrying the softness with his palms. “You can finish the fence without Tilda making you play a revolutionary at the barricade every five minutes, which should be nice,” Bard adds. 

“I _do_ let her down by not being able to hit those high notes,” Bofur jokingly laments, stomach in knots because he always feels like Bard means more than he says, or maybe says more than he means. He's not sure which it is, and it stresses him out. “I’ll definitely finish the fence. I also—if you wanted, I could bring some good weed to smoke together. If you might be into that.” 

Bard laughs, face splitting into an easy, lovely grin that Bofur gets away with looking at since Bard’s still staring out at nothing. “I would definitely be into that,” he says, rubbing his palms together, glancing over as Bofur shoulders his leather jacket on. “It’s a date.” 

And Bofur does _not_ stop repeating those words to himself in a frantic, nervous loop until the next day, when Bard comes back from his Whole Foods shift in the early evening and finds Bofur in the backyard where he's kneeling and hammering, dust on his jeans. “Time flies when you’re having fun and _not_ singing _Les Mis_ songs,” Bofur announces, taking his sunglasses off and hooking them into the stretched-out collar of his Megadeth shirt. “You off already?” 

“Yes, thank god, and so are you. As of now,” Bard says, smiling as he hands Bofur a bottle of some fancy-looking hard cider. He’s backlit by the setting sun, and he’s goddamned handsome, so much so that Bofur has to pause for a moment before taking a sip, gaze sweeping over Bard’s long legs, the way his white t-shirt clings to his stomach, thin enough that he can see the strip of dark hair beneath his navel through the worn in fabric. He _knows_ Bard is hot, he has to deal with it every goddamned _day,_ but sometimes it sort of catches him off guard, and he realizes it all over again, like he’s seeing him for the first time. Bofur shakes his head, wipes some sweat from his brow with his sleeve under the brim of his hat, and takes a long, slow sip of his cider. 

Bard looks _just_ as good after the fact. “Great,” he says, shrugging. “It’s time to get high.” 

It’s one of Bofur’s very favorite rituals: shaking out the fat, sticky buds into his grinder and crunching them up. Carefully tapping the contents into rolling papers. Twisting off the edges and wetting the tip with his lips. The floral green smell of the plant on his fingers before he even lights up. And then the sweeping, ensuing calm as the smoke curls up from the blunt, twisting into idle shapes like clouds to be dissipated with lazy fingers. “Ah,” he says after he flicks off his lighter, offering the joint to Bard before he takes the first hit. “There you go.” 

Bard inhales slow and deep, holding it in his lungs for a long, trembling moment before he starts to cough. “Shit,” he gasps, laughing breathlessly as he passes it back to Bofur, shaking his head with enough force that some of his hair comes down from the elastic to frame his face. “That _is_ good. Jesus. ow.” 

“S’been awhile, hasn’t it?” Bofur asks, delighted, grinning and reaching out to reassuringly pat Bard on the back, ignoring the way his palm tingles at the contact. Bard’s skin is hot under the shift of his sweat-damp shirt, and Bofur chooses to ignore that, too, in favor of taking a hit off the blunt. He does not cough because he is a practiced stoner, and Bard watches him with narrowed eyes, impressed. 

“It has. I think Sigrid would kill me if she found a bag of weed somewhere,” he says, inhaling with more control his time, fingers brushing against Bofur’s during the exchange. “God, that is good shit.” 

“Only the best dope in the House of Durin,” Bofur says. “Our housemate Dori isn’t a _dealer_ dealer, but he steals stuff from _his_ dealer and gives it to us for free. It’s a nice set up.” 

Bard snorts, smoke curling around him, obscuring his face with a haze of pale white. Bofur waves it away because he wants to see all of Bard, all the time, _without_ anything clouding it. He’s only taken two big hits, but it’s already settling into his bones, softening his vision, his _mouth._ That’s always the first to go: his ability to school smiles. Bofur is going to be grinning all night, he can tell, lips broken open wide and sticky like overripe fruit. He hides his mouth behind his arm, and Bard says, “I’d like to come over to your house some time. The way Dwalin and you talk about it—I can imagine it, but it doesn’t seem _real,_ I don’t know.” 

“Please do, I’ll even cook for you. The young ones will be running around, screaming. The floor will be sticky. Honestly, it won’t be much different than it is here. Just...more time signature changes and wild shredding, probably,” he jokes, and Bard tilts sideways on an axis and laughs for _real_ , head tilted back on the couch and eyes scrunched up prettily in the corners, mouth open so that Bofur catches the pink flash of his tongue. It makes his mouth water. He tries not to think about kissing Bard too much, like, _honest_ -to-god kissing him, but he’s thinking about it now. He can hardly think of anything else, so he takes another long, ripping inhalation, lips pressed to the spit-damp impression of Bard’s mouth on the rolling papers. It’s _like_ a kiss, he reminds himself. He’s good at appreciating consolation prizes. He’s a hopeful, full-of-folly, optimistic person, after all. Even even it’s stupid. _Especially_ when its stupid.

“S’fine, I could go for some guitars after all the Andrew Lloyd Webber,” Bard says, taking the blunt and tapping ash into his now empty cider bottle on the coffee tale before inhaling. His eyes are wet and a bit red, but he doesn't dissolve into hacking coughs this time, which is an improvement. He blows out smoke in a tight little furl before asking, “Would your roommates have gay sex right in front of us?” 

Bofur knows it's supposed to be a joke, but it makes him sputter all the same, cheeks heating up as he cackles nervously, drawing his knees toward his chest to kick messily at the air. He wasn’t prepared to hear the phrase _gay sex_ in Bard’s voice when they were sitting mere inches apart, especially not when he’s high and his defenses are lowered. Especially not when Bard looks so fucking _good._ The weed has done nothing to dampen how insufferably handsome he is, and Bofur feels like he’s suffocating, so his voice comes out reedy as he answers, “God, I _hope_ not. I’d like to think they’d be gentlemen if we ever had a guest, but you never know with them these days. Just the other night, Bilbo, the little one, was _sitting in Thorin’s lap_ right in the middle of the living room while we were all hanging out, just like. Moving his hips. Grinding, like. We could all see it. I dunno if he even _noticed,_ they’re so fucking clueless half the time—I got up and left. Couldn’t handle the second-hand embarrassment.” 

“Yeah, fuck that. That’s the sort of thing you only do behind closed doors,” Bard mumbles, gesturing with the blunt before inhaling again and handing it to Bofur. There’s about a single hit left before it burns out, and Bofur gratefully sucks it up, making the butt glow cherry-red. “God,” Bard says then as he watches, erupting into breathless laughter before rubbing his face with his hands. “M’actually really high. That went straight to my head.” 

“S’good stuff. How does it feel?” Bofur asks, trying not to think about gay sex at the same time _all_ he can think about is gay sex. Bard changed into sweatpants, just like he _always_ does as soon as he gets home, and it always fucks Bofur up _bad_ because they hug his ass and hang loose around his thighs and make it so _easy_ to imagine the mystery of what lies beneath. Bofur can all too easily visualize rolling that stretched-out elastic down Bard’s narrow hips. Can imagine the smell of his sweat, the spice of his soap, the musk of his cock. “Oh, my god,” he mutters to himself, thumbing at his temple. “I’m really high, too.” 

Bard snickers and shifts closer, so that his knee presses firm and electric into Bofur’s thigh as an anchor point. “Yeah?” he asks. And then, after a slow, measured swallow, he murmurs. “And—it feels good. Really good.” 

His voice is so quiet, so heavy, and it sticks to Bofur’s skin like caramel…burnt sugar. Something sweet. He shudders, and so many moments over the course of the last month and a half come rushing back to him in slow, cinematic technicolor: Bard smoothing his hand over Bofur’s lower back, Bard asking him to stay,Bard asking _where did you come from?_ with a sharp, awed, accusing tone. _Where do you come from? What’s your story? How did you end up here in my life right when I fucking needed you?_ Bofur swallows, and there’s something thick and aching in his throat. And maybe… _maybe_ he’s being stupid or overly optimistic, or maybe it’s just the weed, but here on Bard’s couch with the kids in Marin and their empty cider bottles housing ash on the table like memorials to their together-solitude, Bofur wonders if just maybe this thing is not as impossible as he’s been thinking. “Hey,” he says, thumbing nervously at a rip near the pocket of his black denim jeans, eyes glued to the single place they’re touching. “When was the last time?” 

“Last time what, I got high?” Bard asks, but the way he says it—he knows Bofur’s asking something else, too. They both know. It’s sitting silently between them, unopened like an early birthday gift, or a chilled bottle of wine. 

“Yeah,” Bofur murmurs, shrugging. “Or you know, the last time you got laid.” 

As soon as he says it, his heart starts to pound in his chest so fiercely and loudly that it feels like it’s filling the entire room. A clock, a metronome, a death march. If Bard notices it, though, he does not mention it. He chokes out a nervous laugh and leans into the pressure of his knee, so that it digs more deeply into Bofur’s thigh. 

Bofur thinks, for a fleeting moment, that such a confident, assuring motion _should_ slow his pulse back to something manageable, but instead it just makes it worse. He feels his breath stick in his throat, sweat suddenly springing to the ditches of his elbows, the back of his neck under his hair and his hat as he fidgets. “Um,” Bard says, thumbing over his own watch, one beat short of wringing his hands. “I can’t remember the last time I did either, really. So. Safe to say more than four years ago, I guess.” He pauses and sucks his cheek in before he adds, “ _Fuck_. Sounds pathetic when I say it, doesn’t it?” He barks out a self-deprecating laugh then, eyes flashing dark as Bofur risks looking up at him. 

He’s so handsome, so fucking beautiful, and Bofur wants to kiss him so _badly,_ but he doesn’t know how. Still, something breaks: he reaches out reflexively and palms over the place they’re joined in tremulous slow motion, palm brushing gently over the soft material of Bard’s sweatpants, at the bend of his knee. “That’s too long, mate,” he says very quietly. 

Bard licks his lips, gaze skittering and unsettled, bloodshot and black. “Is it?” he asks, mouth flickering into something that is not quite a smile before it falters. “Nothing is _too_ long when your wife dies and you don’t date. Or know how to.” 

Bofur should back off, maybe. That seems like the rational thing to do, when you’re touching a guy’s leg, thinking about kissing him, and he brings up his dead wife. But something inside him tells him not to because he doesn’t _believe_ , in this moment, that it’s what Bard actually _wants._ He’s still pressing into him, he’s still passing his tongue over his lips every few seconds, he’s still very _nearly_ wringing his hands. He’s still—he’s _looking_ at Bofur, fleeting and trembling, like a candle that stubbornly burns on, even though a gust of breath might snuff it out. 

Heart in his throat, Bofur swallows nervously and thumbs over the cotton of Bard’s sweats, very carefully, very softly. “I don’t want to be disrespectful,” he murmurs. “It’s the last thing I want to be, so please fucking hit me if this is crossing a line.” Then Bard looks up with a pleading flint-black to his eyes, and their gazes meet, hot and electric. It’s enough for Bofur. Enough for him to _try_. “I’d suck you off, if you wanted me to,” is what he says. 

It’s far from the most romantic pick-up line he’s ever used, and Bard laughs, eyes flicking up to the ceiling, wet and dark, where he stares. “Are you serious?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Bofur makes himself say, shifting closer, watching Bard and tracking every little tic and shift in his body language: his thundering pulse in the hollow of his throat. The twitch of his fingers in the fabric of his own shirt. The way he’s still sitting with his knees splayed wide and inviting, heart on display. “I know I’m not usually a serious guy, like, ever. But I am right now, Bard. I promise,” he confesses, sliding his hand a little higher. Along the unnamed stretch of skin between Bard’s knee and thigh. 

Bofur lets his eyes drift and lock between Bard’s spread legs, where he’s starting to tent his sweats a little, cock twitching visibly, making Bofur’s stomach drop, his heart pick up and race again, cheeks fevered as he stares. God. _God._ He wants to do it so fucking _badly._ If only to know for _sure_ , if only to put an end to his confusion. He wants to be _certain_ about this, to know if he actually likes Bard, actually _wants_ him for real, or if it’s something he can get out of his system and forget about. Go back to his life of not-wanting. Not-dreaming. 

Bard still hasn’t said anything, though. He’s just inhaling in stilted, labored breaths, eyes locked on the ceiling. But he also hasn't _hit_ Bofur, and Bofur certainly gave him full permission to employ such means. “It doesn’t have to be a _thing,”_ he offers, cocking his head, mouth flooded with want. “It can just be another way I help you out.” 

Bard’s laugh is a strangled, frantic thing. “You already do so _much_ , you don’t have to—I can’t _pay_ you for this sort of thing, Bofur. If this is about that, I can offer you more hours or—”

“No! No, fuck, it’s not...you don’t have to _pay_ me, I—,” _I want to_ feels too raw and terrifying a thing to confess, but after the words stick in his throat, Bofur swallows them down and tries again, eyes stuck on the way Bard is perhaps subconsciously palming his cock already, squeezing it through threadbare gray cotton. “I’ve thought about it,” he admits, voice choked, reedy. “Just. You can pretend m’someone else, if you want to. Or watch porn or whatever if it freaks you out too much to—”

“Oh, god, no. That’s not—that’s not the problem,” Bard says, fingers twitching around himself as he thickens in his sweats. 

“What, then?” Bofur asks, shifting a little closer, digging his thumb into Bard’s thigh, watching with his stomach in knots at the way he’s spreading out a little, softening like butter in a hot skillet, so lovely, so curious. 

“I need to know you’re not offering this out of some sense of obligation,” Bard murmurs, letting go of his cock and rubbing his hand up his chest, rucking his shirt up a bit so that Bofur can see his pale stomach, the trail of dark hair he’s always noticing through his white shirts. “Or pity.” 

Bofur licks his lips, feeling fucking crazy. “I promise you,” he says, letting go of Bard’s leg long enough to hold up a hand like he’s swearing on an imaginary Bible. “I absolutely promise.” 

“Fuck,” Bard chokes out, sounding exhausted as he writhes on the couch once Bofur lets him go, rocking his hips, visibly trembling in overwhelm, anticipation, _something. “_ Okay, yeah, fine. If you—it’s just been so _long._ I don’t know how to act.” 

“You’re thinking about it too much,” Bofur tells him, mechanically shifting up off the couch and sinking to the carpet on his knees now that he has permission. The weed has made his senses hyper-acute at the same time everything is moving sluggish and sweet like molasses, so he takes his time inhaling and exhaling in what he hopes is a rhythm, palming up the outside of Bard’s thighs, watching his sweatpants gather and shift, warm with his skin. He can smell his cock through the material, and it’s making the blood rush in his head, mouth flooding with spit he has to keep swallowing in trembling, yearning mouthfuls. “It’s just a blowjob, it’s not like _you_ can do it wrong. Just lie there and let me do my thing, okay?” Bofur says _his thing_ like he has ever sucked a cock in his life and has any idea what to do. He watches as Bard lifts his hips off the couch a bit before he thinks better of it and settles back down, taking his cock out without kicking out of his sweats. That’s _fine._ Bofur is terrified anyway, he’s not sure he can handle Bard’s naked legs _in addition_ to everything else. It feels too vulnerable, too big, too weird. His hands are shaking as he curls one around the base of Bard’s cock, which is cut and average-sized but also _pretty_ , just like the rest of Bard. Bofur didn't even know dicks could _be_ pretty until this moment. 

It makes his chest wildly tight to feel the shift of smooth skin over rock-solid heat, and he tries to catch his breath as he touches Bard, jacking him off the same way he touches himself, firm and steady. Bard gasps and bucks up into the pressure. “Good?” Bofur asks, surprised. “Just this?” 

“Yeah, I—I told you. It’s been awhile,” Bard grits out, chest heaving and eyes shut tight, hair stuck to his cheek, which is already perspiration-sticky. Bofur wants so badly to reach up and brush it away, to touch the bones of his face, map him out. He’ll take his cock, though. He’ll take whatever he can get. 

“See, that means you _really_ need to get your cock sucked,” he jokes lightly, waggling his eyebrows even though Bard isn’t looking at him, voice nothing but breath. He's so nervous and high that he starts somewhere manageable, pushing Bard’s shirt up a little and pressing his face into the flat plane of his stomach, inhaling from his skin, grounding himself as he presses reflexive, hungry kisses to the smooth stretch of it since he can’t kiss Bard’s lips and isn’t ready to taste his precum. 

Bard smells so fucking _good_ , is the thing. Bofur has been chubbing up in his jeans ever since they started talking about this, but as he sucks up desperate lungfuls of the humid air between Bard’s thighs, his erection flexing against the hinge of Bofur’s jaw, he feels himself thicken to full hardness, straining against his zipper. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it doesn’t matter anymore because his hunger is knocking him down and taking over, clutching somewhere deep in his gut as he pulls back, takes Bard’s cock in hand, and opens his mouth to taste it. 

At first, he just licks experimentally over the head a few times, back and forth to collect the clear, tantalizing fluid beading at the slit. It’s salty and bitter and the skin underneath is smooth and flavorless, and Bofur was possibly anticipating…more. Something stronger, or maybe more overwhelming or scary. It’s not scary at all, though, it’s just _good._

It’s _effortless_ to fit his mouth over the crown and suck in gentle, exploratory pulses. It’s _easy_ to slide down with his lips sealed tight against the shaft until it hits the back of his throat. It’s so fucking _simple_ to bob up and down, to make it wet and sloppy and slick like in porn. In fact, the whole operation is _so much less_ complicated and stressful and intimidating than going down on a girl. He _knows_ dicks. Dicks are basic. He has one. It requires _very_ little finesse or energy to make Bard gasp or lock up or buck his hips, but Bofur still feels _insanely_ powerful and good about himself every time he does it, his heart rate spiking, his cock twitching in his jeans as he palms it messily with his free hand. He really wants to unzip and get it out because he could _definitely_ come doing this, but he also sort of feels like that changes the dynamic of offering your friend-slash-employer a very casual blowjob. So instead, he just resolves to ache, groaning around Bard’s cock, stomach in knots. 

He starts to _really_ want to, like—fucking _choke_ on it after a few minutes of sucking without gagging once, so he moves his hand from the base and sinks as low as he can, eyes watering as he wills away the reflexive tightening of his throat, nose buried momentarily in the coarse, sweat-damp nest of Bard’s pubes. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Bard hisses, thighs trembling on either side of Bofur’s shoulders, squeezing him between them as he spasms. 

“Good?” Bofur asks as he pulls off panting, eyes tear-wet and drool all over his chin. He _definitely_ likes this. He _definitely_ is not gonna get it out of his system, he can tell. He’s gonna crave it all the fucking time. Even now, he’s thrumming with hunger, wanting to _smell_ Bard again, to fill his lungs with musk and spice and salt. He jacks him off as he presses his face into his pubes and then _lower_ , to his balls, tugging his cock up toward his navel so that he can lick his hairy sac, suck it into his mouth. _Fuck,_ he thinks, stomach plummeting, heart in his throat. He feels so filthy, so desperate, and he’s not even _touching_ himself. He's just sucking Bard. Licking him up, inhaling from him, entirely too high and positively lost in the wreck of his own senses. 

“Yeah,” Bard bites out, voice sounding strangled, far away, compromised. “So good. I’m close. I’ll tell you when I’m about to come,” he breathes, voice thinning out over a keening groan as Bofur swallows him back down greedily. 

He flicks his gaze up, expecting to be able to watch Bard scrunch his eyes shut while he thinks about whatever he’s thinking about that is definitely not Bofur. However, instead of grit teeth and fluttering lids, their eyes lock because Bard is staring _right_ at him. There’s a line through his red, sweat-shiny forehead, and his eyes are blown black and wide with pupil, the intensity of his gaze sending an arrow of shock rocketing through Bofur’s body so intensely that it makes him tremble. Bard is also fisting in the blanket on the couch, arms stiff and flexing on either side of his body, like he wishes he could—reach out, or something. Force Bofur’s head down, probably, and the thought is so fucking hot and overwhelming, it makes him choke a little. _You can touch me,_ he wants to say, but he also doesn’t want to be pushy or weird if that’s not what’s happening, and _more_ than that, he doesn’t want to stop sucking cock. So he just rips his gaze back down and sucks him deeper, groaning rhythmically as he does it, loving the way it fills him, the inescapable stretch, the suffocation. 

“Fuck. I’m— _ah,”_ Bard hisses, hips locking up and tensing as he thrusts messily into Bofur’s mouth. “You can use your hand to finish me off.” 

But Bofur will do no such thing. He lashes his tongue and gags himself hard, and in seconds, Bard is shooting off, and even though he _knew_ it was coming, the reality of it shocks him so much that he chokes on the overwhelming surge of salt and jerks away, flinching as a hot gush of come hits him in the face while he reflexively swallows the one already in his mouth. His heart is pounding, he can’t really breathe, he’s so fucking high, and come is _disgusting_ , but he still weirdly _likes it_ even though he _hates it._ His lips are tingling, so he wipes them on the back of his hand, thumbing the stickiness out of his mustache and blinking at it in a daze, eyes burning as Bard lies there, liquid on the couch. “Oh, god,” he mumbles after a moment, expression hazy as he forces his eyes open to look at Bofur, who’s still on his knees, stunned as he runs his tongue over his teeth repeatedly. “M’so sorry. Shit, let me go get you a tissue to clean up,” Bard says, trying to stand before he melts back down bonelessly, cock shining and spit-wet and thick and _fucking gorgeous_ as it twitches and softens against his stomach. 

Bofur manages to come to his senses. “No!” he says, dizzy as he stands on unsteady legs, hands clumsily outstretched to motion for Bard to stay put. “You relax. Sit there. I will go get the tissue, don’t worry, it’s fine. You’re fine.” 

He wonders how terrifically obvious his erection is as he stumbles down the hallway and through Bard’s bedroom to the master bathroom, his whole body feeling floaty and fever-hot and desperate for release in a way he hasn't felt since he was a _teenager,_ or something. It feels like a twenty-year-old ache, decades of indifferent numbness layered onto him like bandages, like _scar tissue._ All of it, scrubbed off in a single moment on his knees. It’s insane. _He’s_ insane. He’s definitely gone fucking insane. 

Trying his very hardest to not look at his reflection in the mirror after locking the door behind him lest he find himself indelibly altered, Bofur hurries to the toilet and braces himself over it with his arms on the wall like he used to do when he was drunk at a bar and trying his hardest not to puke. Instead of puking, though, he unbuttons his jeans, gets his cock out, and touches himself. 

It’s _embarrassing_ how fast he comes. It’s even _more_ embarrassing how _hard_ he comes, with his free hand over his mouth and nose to trap the scent of Bard’s load there in the tight, close, humid air he’s breathing. He comes over his closed fist in ribbons, inhaling hungrily from his own mustache for traces of sweat, of salt, of _Bard._ And then he collapses against the wall in a breathless heap, jeans around his thighs and come all over the tank of the toilet. 

It is not Bofur’s proudest moment. He also sort of thought that after _he_ came, the massive surge of yearning and want and just— _feeling—_ that’s been building too tight in his chest for weeks would fall away like a waistband that’s lost its elastic in the glare of the sun. Instead, it tightens more. Shrinking and closing over his lungs, swelling to crush them. His lips are tingly and his throat sort of hurts and he’s totally spent and his mouth tastes gross and still…. _still._ All he wants to do is storm back out into the living room and drop to his knees again. Or maybe straddle Bard and kiss him on the mouth. Press his face into his hair to smell the memory of shampoo. _Something._

It’s safe to say that sucking Bard’s cock did _not_ get this out of his system. In fact, it made the whole thing marginally worse. 

He stares at the streaky white mess of his come on Bard’s toilet and wonders what the fuck he’s going to do. 

Bofur can’t stay in the bathroom forever, obviously, as much as he’d like to. 

Eventually, he wipes down the toilet, buttons his pants, and washes his face in the sink so his stomach won’t keep dropping every time he inhales and smells Bard on himself. Then he lets himself out and bravely walks back into the living room, half-worried Bard won’t be there at all. Luckily, Bofur finds him in very much the same state he left him in: stoned and sprawled out on the couch. He has at least put his dick away and tied his hair back up neatly, and his cheeks are substantially less flushed. Alas, this does not make Bofur want to rub his thumbs over them any less. He still fantasizes about it as he studies Bard, trying his hardest to read between the soft, tired-looking lines on his smiling face. “Hi,” Bard says, one hand starfished over his own stomach, the other resting on his thigh in the pantomime of something casual. “Are you alright?” he asks gently. 

Bofur snorts. He doesn't know what he is, really. On the one hand, he’s positively ecstatic because he got at least a fraction of the very thing he’s been craving. On the other hand, he also feels lost and scared, _unsatisfied,_ because beneath the layers of complacency, he wants _more._ He wants all he can get away with. “M’good. High,” he eventually settles on, shrugging and offering Bard a noncommittal grin. “How are _you?_ Was that—did you—”

“It was fucking great,” Bard says, cutting him off, mouth twisting into an unreadable line. “I’m sorry if I…if I was overeager. And I hope you enjoyed it a fraction as much as I did, though I can’t imagine how you could have.” 

Bofur, who is very hot and shivery from coming, still, sits down beside Bard even though he would prefer to sit on top of him. “I enjoyed it plenty,” he says, exercising his ability to practice the fine literary technique of _understatement. “_ And you probably only got off so hard because you’re out of practice. I’ll _try_ not to let it go to my head,” he adds. “Hard not to impress a guy who hasn’t been blown in four years.” 

Bard laughs, and so does Bofur, and they laugh together, as if nothing has happened. As if the fucking world hasn’t changed, the universe shifting to accommodate this new, cavernous wound. Bofur laughs until his chest is tight, his throat is sore, and then he laughs some more. Maybe, if he laughs enough, the fact that he’s not touching Bard anymore will stop hurting like a phantom limb. 

When he finally catches his breath, he does not mean to speak, but it happens anyway. “M’sorry the first time in four years wasn’t, like. Some hot girl,” he says, fiddling with a loose string on the Oakland A’s blanket. “A milf with perfect tits.” 

“I’m not,” Bard says, yawning. “Sorry, I mean.” 

And Bofur does not know what that means, so he does not push the matter further. He just stares at the place on the carpet where he knelt like a sinner taking sacrament and wonders what the fuck he is going to do with the tide of feeling in his chest that ebbs, and flows, but refuses to shrink into nothing. 


	5. Master of Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helllllo friends!!! Another chapter for you!!! Lots of cute Bilbo and Thorin content, Bofur angst, a massive cleaning project, and an ill fated movie night. The next chapter after this one is EXTREMELY juicy so buckle up! <3

Bofur goes home that night and tries to make peace with the possibility that he will never get to touch Bard like that again. That it was perhaps just a weird fluke, a mistake, something Bard allowed only because he was high and lonely, and Bofur was conveniently there and practically begging for it. He tries to accept that this is, most likely, not destined to become a repeat occurrence, no matter how badly he’d like it to be. 

But when he comes over on Saturday to finish the fence, it happens again. 

Twice. 

The first time, it’s rushed and clumsy and against the living room wall because Bard is trying to get out the door for work. It’s _his_ idea, though, and Bofur is absolutely not strong enough to say _no_ , so he caves like a sandcastle washed away during high tide _,_ sinking to his knees, feeling wild and dizzy and greedy as he unbuttons Bard’s tight black jeans and rolls them down his hips, mouth watering. He smells like cologne and tastes like soap, but Bofur spends the whole day dreaming about it anyway, longing for sweat and smelling his fingers just in case the memory lingers there, beneath blunt nails. It’s definitely not enough, though, and he feels half-crazy, _especially_ after working out in the sun all day, replaying what it felt like to suck him deep and hungry before finishing him off with his hand, cheek pressed to the steel-hard length of him, sticky ribbons falling over his fingers, shining like pearl. 

He obsesses over it for so many hours that he decides he needs it all over again. So when Bard comes back, _Bofur_ is the one who makes it happen this time. He drags him back to the couch with a fist in his shirt, mind racing and mouth dry, but before he can even properly _suggest_ a rerun of this morning, Bard’s eyes are flashing dark, he’s unbuckling his belt, and _halle-fucking-lujah,_ Bofur is so insanely relieved they don’t actually have to _talk_ about it. That's such a nice, unanticipated _plus_ to hooking up with a man.

He sinks to his knees, and this time he can smell his own spit from this morning on Bard’s cock alongside the day’s idle sweat, and it makes him feel so fucking crazy and— _moved,_ even—that he wants to cry. 

“God— _fuck,”_ Bard chokes out, spreading himself out wider on the couch, hips trembling like he’s trying to hold back from thrusting up into the heat of Bofur’s mouth. _You can, you can fuck my face, give it to me,_ Bofur thinks in a filthy wreck, but he has no idea how to go about _saying_ something so crass, so vile, so _desperate_. In addition to being a nice, unanticipated plus, the not-talking bit has also proved challenging. He’s so terrified of fucking this up, going too far, asking too much. The last thing he wants to do is push Bard away, and he thinks the best way to avoid that is just shutting up and using his mouth for other things, so that’s what he does. It’s what he _wants_ , anyway, even if it’s not _everything_ he wants. 

He’s working on just enjoying the ache in his jaw and the stretch of his lips when, very suddenly, Bard’s hand drifts to the back of Bofur’s neck to touch him there softly. Probably on accident. 

It’s so unanticipated that Bofur flinches, and his heart starts to pound, cheeks flushing. “Sorry,” Bard says automatically, coughing as he takes his hand away. “I didn’t mean—” 

Mentally kicking himself for the reflexive jerk, Bofur pulls off Bard’s cock with a lewd, wet sound, panting. “No, no,” he says gently, shaking his head, “s’okay.” And then, because saying _I want you to touch me_ feels positively terrifying, Bofur reaches for him instead, fitting a nervous hand around Bard’s elbow and gently guiding him back down, until his fingers bump curiously up against his ear, under the flap of his ushanka. 

_Fuck._ The contact is chaste and minimal, but there’s something so _intimate_ about it, too. Bard is careful and cautious, and his hand lingers for a few seconds before he guides Bofur back down to his cock, staring with wide, dark eyes. The touch is warm. _Sweet,_ even, as he threads his fingers through the ends of Bofur’s hair, untangling the strands. Bofur moans around his cock, tilting into the touch, not even caring how fucking _transparent_ his desperation is. He wants Bard’s hands. He wants Bard however he can get him. 

Bard seems encouraged by his enthusiasm, though, which is a good thing. He knocks his hat off and pushes his fingers into Bofur’s hair to feel out his scalp, to hold him in place as he bucks and gasps, cock flexing between his lips, against his tongue. _God,_ it’s so good. Bofur can hardly believe this is happening, that Bard is _touching_ him, fucking _into_ him, hungry for it in the same way that _he_ is hungry. Has been hungry all goddamned day. Bofur feels drunk and bold and stupid with it, so as he sucks Bard’s cock, one hand curled around the base of it to steady himself, he very prudently explores with the other. Rubs up and down Bard’s hip a little, pushes his fingers just under the hem of his shift to feel the segments of muscle beneath a layer of softness. His skin is loose and hot and so fucking _smooth,_ and Bofur’s stomach plummets as he imagines getting to feel him all over. He would _lick him,_ if he could. He’d suck a path right up his ribcage, bite the tender crease of skin under his arm. 

“You’re hard,” a voice says, thick and low and far away. Bofur’s eyes snap open as his fingers flex against Bard’s side. He registers what he’s just heard and pulls off in a mess of froth with a gasp. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles sheepishly, wiping drool from his mouth with the back of his band before parting his knees to steal a glance at the way he’s tenting his jeans so fucking obviously that Bard _noticed_ in the middle of receiving a blowjob. Bofur wonders if he was, like, subconsciously thrusting into the air or something, humping at nothing. He thumbs up the vein on the underside of Bard’s cock, licking his lips. “Must be contagious.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Bard breathes, carding his fingers through Bofur’s hair, making him shiver, his eyes slide shut. “You can jack off,” he offers, eyes flitting down, tongue passing over his lips. “If you want.” 

Bofur _definitely_ wants. He shudders in relief, grinning as he bends down to press a wet, open-mouthed kiss to Bard’s shaft, eliciting a twitch. “You sure?” he asks, lips ghosting over Bard’s erection, everything slick and gliding with spit. “I don’t want you to have to see anything you don’t want to see.” 

Bard laughs, his abs jumping under Bofur’s spread-wide hand, displacing it. “I can close my eyes, if that’s what you prefer.” 

“No, sneak a peek, do what you like, I won't judge you,” Bofur mumbles as he very unceremoniously unbuttons his pants and gets his cock out, whining a little at the relief of his own touch. “Ah. God. That’s better.” 

Everything seems too-sweet, terribly surreal. He shuts his eyes against a wave of dizziness and inhales, deciding he doesn’t care if he’s dreaming, or if he’s making a mistake. He wants this so _badly._ He was the kid who’d eat himself sick every Halloween, and nothing has changed. 

It feels better to touch himself if he’s sucking Bard’s cock at the same time he does it, so he gets back to it, sliding down deep enough to gag a bit, choking out wordless, appreciative noises as he sucks and bobs his head. He loves Bard’s hands in his hair, he loves his gasps, he loves how his voice gets sweatier and his skin gets sweat-dewier as he starts to approach orgasm. Bard can tell he’s close because he _smells_ stronger, fever-hot and perfect, bucks becoming staccato, sounds more ripped and hoarse. 

Bofur is thumbing through the slick beading at the head of his own cock, touching himself somewhat lazily and leisurely because he’s so fucking turned on right now that it’s not gonna take _anything_ to push himself over the edge. He’s focused on Bard instead: the weight of him on his tongue, thickness, the stretch, the musk of his pubic hair flooding his lungs every time he pushes his face into it and inhales through his nose. 

“Jesus,” Bard hisses at some point, reaching between Bofur’s spread thighs with the toe of his tennis shoe and using it to push the splay of his knees apart. Bofur scrambles, wondering what the fuck he’s doing until he realizes with a fierce surge of overwhelm in his gut that Bard—Bard is _looking_ at him. He’s staring down at the motion of his own hand on his own cock. He’s making him part his legs wider so he can _watch_ better. He’s splitting him like a wishbone. But before Bofur can process how insanely hot that is or even _think_ about putting on a show for him or picking up the pace or doing anything at _all_ , Bard’s hand is flexing against the back of Bofur’s neck at the same time his cock is flexing against the back of his throat, and then he’s coming. 

Just like the first time, it hits Bofur burning and bitter and shocking. But instead of twitching away from the surge of heat, he powers through it and swallows reflexively, eyes watering as he sinks lower and keeps sucking, nursing Bard’s cock through the aftershocks of his orgasm, stroking himself fiercely until he shoots off right there on his knees in the fucking living room with a strangled groan. 

Luckily, most of his load ends up on his own shirt and hand, which he wipes on his jeans instead of the carpet because he is not a disgusting person, he _just_ vacuumed in here, like, two days ago. Bard is wrecked under him, gasping as he gently and perhaps completely accidentally touches Bofur’s face because Bofur simply can’t believe that it’s something Bard would _willingly_ do while in his right mind. But here he is, thumbing over Bofur’s cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, rubbing up and down a few times until he keens, twitching away from Bofur’s swollen, still-sucking lips. “ _Fuck_ , you are good at that,” he mumbles, finally letting go of Bofur to rub at his own temples, face a crumpled mess. “I’m seeing stars.” 

“Good,” Bofur says after he tucks his cock back into his jeans and zips up, feeling very complacent about this whole situation, heart still thundering in his chest, adrenaline spiking through his body in waves. He’s terrifically dizzy, so he lies down on the floor at Bard’s feet, gazing up at the ceiling with a stupid, messy grin painted over his face. He can’t get rid of it, no matter how hard he tries. “Well,” he says, thumbing over the stickiness he left on his own shirt, thinking he should probably get up and rinse it out in the sink, but at the same time, well aware he might not be able to move even if he wanted to. “This—this is fun.” 

Bard snorts from the couch. “Fun,” he says eventually, and it feels like neither a dispute nor an agreement. Bofur wants to ask what _he_ thinks it is, if it isn’t fun, but at the same time, he’s not sure he’s ready to hear what Bard has to say about it at all. There’s still a distinct possibility that this tacit arrangement could end at any moment, that Bard’s just reaping a few good orgasms out of a willing mouth before he decides to head back to the dating game after having taken the edge off of four years’ worth of grief-celibacy. And it’s not like Bard would date _Bofur_. That’s—that’s not what men do with other men, he’s pretty sure. Unless they’re men like Bilbo and Thorin, who know who they are, who seek it out, who _live that way,_ unapologetically raw and shameless. But Bofur is pretty sure that no matter what _this_ is, he and Bard aren’t like _that,_ exactly. They’re something messier, something more uncertain. And, of course, they’re also _older._ Personally, he doesn't have a _word_ for whatever he is yet, and he does not care to find one because he’s very nearly forty years old and doesn't have the energy left for the sorts of self-discovery and exploration games you play when you’re young. Whatever he is, it doesn’t _matter_. He wants things he can’t have, but he has _this_ , at least. And he’s happy to see it through until it runs its course. For he knows, in the end, that it _will_ run its course. 

Eventually, Bard gets up without saying anything and walks down the hallway to his bedroom, holding his pants up since he hasn’t bothered to buckle his belt. “Where are you going?” Bofur asks from the floor, voice high and weak because swallowing come makes him hoarse, apparently.

Bard laughs, but it comes out crisp and tattered and a little sad. Finally, Bofur’s smile falters, and he remembers how to frown. “To get dressed,” Bard calls from the hallway. “I have to get to the White Horse.” There’s a pause, and then the sound of an exhalation that is almost a sigh. “You made me late for my shift.” 

_Shit._ Bofur had completely forgotten about that. He sits up and almost hits his head on the underside of the coffee table, scrambling to finish buttoning his pants and stand so that he can properly apologize. Except he doesn't even _want_ to apologize. He wants to do something insane and romantic, like beg Bard to call in sick and just—stay. But he only knows how to say _let me blow you again_ because sex is all he feels comfortable asking for at this point. And he can’t suggest another blowjob _now._ They both came so hard. He’s not a teenager. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. “Fuck. Let me drive you,” he says instead, rubbing at his messy hair before finding his hat and plunking it back on his head. “I bet I can get you there in time. Or at least talk to your boss. I’ll set the record straight and tell ’em it was my fault.” 

Bard is washing his face in the bathroom sink, wetting his hair before tying it neatly back. “Don’t, stay and finish the fence, please. I’m not going to tell my _boss_ I showed up late because I was fucking the babysitter.” He sounds far more exhausted than bitter, and he does not _snap_ at Bofur as he says this, but _god,_ does it still hurt. 

Bofur steps back and lingers awkwardly in the hallway, messing with his come-stained shirt. “Guess that wouldn't sound great, would it.” 

“I’m off tomorrow to pick the kids up from Marin, so you don’t have to come by,” Bard tells him, eyes flashing in the very brief, charged moment he looks at Bofur before pushing past him and heading out into the living room to grab his jacket and keys. “I’ll see you Monday morning. Usual time.” 

And then he pauses for a moment, like he’s about to say something else. Perhaps, _actually, now that I’m thinking about it, don’t come at all. You’re fired,_ which would be totally fair. Or perhaps it’s something less sinister because Bard is just not as _invested_ in this as Bofur is and can sense the disconnect. Maybe he wants to say _thank you for the casual platonic blowjob, even though you made it weird by liking me too much. Please back off._ Bofur really has no idea, he’s not good at reading the darkness of Bard’s eyes. They’re so black sometimes that they just reflect, so it’s like looking into a mirror. All his own insecurities reflected right back at him, filling voids. 

Then the pause passes, and Bard turns away to let himself out the door. 

Bofur stands in the bathroom and washes his shirt out for a very, very long time. He lists Gamma Ray albums to himself as he does it so that he does not have to think his own thoughts. _Land of the Free. Sigh No More. Heading for Tomorrow. No World Order. Power Plant. Insanity and Genius. Somewhere Out in Space. Master of Confusion._

He lands on that last one for a while, then repeats it on a loop. 

—-

On his Sunday off, Bofur wakes up feeling hungover even though he did not drink the night before. He rolls over with the distinct heaviness to his chest that he only experiences when something very bad has happened, but this morning he’s too groggy to remember what it is, so all that haunts him is the _sensation_. A dull ache in the solar plexus, the knowledge he messed up, somehow. Then Bard’s quiet, even, matter-of-fact voice saying _fucked the babysitter_ suddenly materializes in his brain, and he groans into his own dirty pillowcase. _Fuck._ He doesn't want to _think_ about Bard. He doesn’t want to think about his dark eyes and self-deprecating smiles and the gray in his hair or the shift of skin over his knuckles. He does not want to think about how good his cock tastes, how he thinks he could be perfectly happy for the rest of his life learning to deep throat it. He doesn’t want to think about the way Bard kicked his knees open wider to stare at Bofur’s hard cock, like Bofur’s hard cock is something worth staring at. He doesn’t want to think about the lives people lead when they are functional or have money, good looks, or determination, or whatever other cocktail of qualities Bofur has always found too elusive to pin down. He doesn't want to think. He wants to swim in the ocean, or drive across the country, or get so high he can hear colors and forget the way Bard’s fucking _soap_ smells.

Instead, he cleans his room. 

It’s been bothering him for weeks, if he’s honest. For all the scrubbing and sweeping and Swiffering he does at Bard’s place, his own room at the House of Durin has been relatively untouched for the several years he’s lived there. He wears approximately four outfits and washes those when they get dirty, but he actually has, like, a decent amount of clothes that just sit in messy heaps around the room like those slouchy ‘90s bean-bag chairs, serving more as furniture than anything else. He also has so many fucking CDs and records lying around on every surface, but none of them are in the correct cases, so whenever he grabs one to play, he ends up having to search through his entire collection to find what he actually needs. The decor is uninspiring as well. His walls are papered in posters and concert tickets and cutouts of guitar magazines like a fucking teenager, and although he fantasizes about stripping them so that he can trash some things and frame others, he’s never actually _done_ it. He also hasn’t washed his sheets in literal months. The only things he maintains, actually, are his guitars, which are meticulously cared for and sit upon their stands in a line beside his bookshelf and opposite his bed, so that he can stare at them when he’s high and think about how wonderful and pretty they are, how proud he is that he has seven and bought each one himself after years of saving up. 

But he hasn’t felt _good_ coming home ever since he started working for Bard. His room used to be comforting and familiar even if it was a mess, but now the dirty laundry and weed smell just make him wrinkle his nose up and open the window. He hates that every surface has _stuff_ on it, and he hates that he has to pick his way across the floor cautiously so he doesn't crush a jewel case beneath his boot. When he spends his whole day tidying, it’s a fucking let down, and he’s sick of it. He doesn’t _want_ to like Bard’s house more than his own. 

So he gets up, makes himself some coffee, and resolves to do something about it. 

He puts on DragonForce’s _Sonic Firestorm_ at maximum volume because that shit pumps him way up, and then he starts sorting through his heaps of laundry until he has a full load, which he takes down to the basement and tosses in the very noisy and unfortunately not at _all_ efficient ‘80s washer Dori donated to the house a million years ago. Then he heads back up to finish the rest, which ends up being enough dirty clothes for _three_ additional loads, not including the towels and sheets that are also in desperate need of a wash. It’s gonna be a long fucking day with a lot of fucking laundry. In the meantime, he sweeps, dusts, organizes his CDs, and starts ripping the useless stuff off his walls until it's time to switch his clothes to the dryer and wash another load. 

By lunch time, his room is actually looking sort of _cool._ He set aside some of his favorite records, the ones with really sick album artwork, and mounted them on his walls with some push pins he straight-up stole from Bilbo because he just _knew_ he would have push pins in his desk, and also Bofur does _not_ feel bad collecting reparations for all the sleep he’s lost to the unyielding sounds of incessant fucking. Without all the laundry monopolizing the floor space, he has more room for his guitars, too, so he’s able to create a better display option with his amps. He can also move around without tripping, which is a huge relief. It looks much bigger and brighter now, and for the first time in several months of slow-building discomfort, Bofur can breathe. 

Unfortunately, he realizes he would _still_ rather be at Bard’s house, but he chooses to ignore that fact for now. Maybe he just needs time to settle into his newly clean room in order to properly enjoy it. Or maybe his heart is sort of broken. He's not sure, and he’d rather not be, so instead, he continues to busily tackle tasks to distract himself. 

He gets tired of waiting for the washing machine, so he decides to load up his remaining laundry, along with the massive black garbage bag of stuff he’s gonna donate to the Goodwill on MacArthur, into his car and heads to the nearest laundromat. Sadly, the one he finds is nowhere near a coffee shop or a bar or anything fun at all, so unless Bofur wants to treat himself to a leisurely Chinese luncheon three blocks away, he’s stuck sitting on a grimy bench, kicking at grimier tile, watching a tangle of his monochrome clothes spin listlessly behind a circle of glass while he does everything in his power not to overanalyze every single word Bard has ever said to him. 

The swirling eddies of soap and t-shirts actually prove to be sort of hypnotic, and before long, Bofur is quite deeply mired in escapist adventure fantasies about slaying dragons and riding horses across wheat fields while he carries a banner for an imaginary kingdom when someone fucking _touches_ him right on top of his head, stealing his hat. 

“Hey!” he snaps, scrambling for it, spinning around to confront the culprit. 

It’s Thorin, who smiles down at him and drops the hat back onto his head. “Bofur,” he says quite cheerfully, because Thorin is a generally cheerful person now, which is still jarring to Bofur after years of regarding him as one of the quieter, more sullen of his friends. He supposes that _months’_ worth of multiple-orgasm nights will do that, though. “Laundry day for you, too?” 

“Oi, you could say that,” Bofur agrees as he grins back. “Where’s your other half?! Did you actually venture out into the world to complete a side quest without Bilbo?” 

Thorin’s face softens, and he shakes his head, swinging up a hefty hamper of laundry onto the bench behind Bofur. “No. This is mostly his stuff. He’s in the car, finishing an email to his advisor, I told him I’d start it.” 

“You are positively _whipped,_ my friend, ” Bofur cackles, slapping his knee as he turns back to his own spinning washer, head shaking. 

“I know,” Thorin says fondly, feeding some quarters into the slot and shaking his head. “Do you think it's shameful? I don’t.” 

Bofur snorts. “No! Not at all. I think it’s great. I love it. Happy is a good look on you,” he says, and weirdly enough, he actually _means_ it this time. He says it without the twist of irritation in his gut that he’s been battling every time something ThorinandBilbo-adjacent comes up. Instead, all he feels is a sad, wistful sort of longing _. Maybe you’re jealous,_ he remembers Bard telling him, and deep down, he knows he’s right. Part of Bofur really just wishes _he_ was happy, instead of making everyone else happy. Instead of just wearing a perpetual happy face. “You guys have a really nice thing going,” he adds as he stares at the sea of black swishing round and round, trying not to think about Bard, which is the same thing as thinking about him. 

In that moment, Bilbo bustles in. “He granted me an extension, _thank god,_ but this means I _actually_ need to spend an entire day writing at the library,” he announces, whisking up to Thorin’s side and getting on his tippy-toes to kiss him. It’s a deep, lingering, soul-kiss instead of a greeting peck, but Bofur doesn’t even roll his eyes this time. He just chews the inside of his cheek raw and wonders when the last time he fucking _kissed_ someone was. He literally doesn’t even remember. 

Bilbo pulls away with a wet sound and notices him. “Bofur! Did _your_ laundry routine get thrown off, too? Nobody in the house _ever_ uses the washer and dryer on Sunday, but _someone_ must have run out of underwear today or something.” 

“It was me,” Bofur confesses. “Not the underwear thing, just the hogging the machines thing. I was doing a deep clean.” 

Bilbo seems so delighted by this that he no longer minds he was cruelly forced to take his clothes to the laundromat. “A _deep clean?!_ Let me know if you want help, I love organizing.” 

“I _did_ borrow some of your push pins, thank you,” Bofur says, shooting him a thumbs up. 

“Do you want anything else? Some art prints to spruce up the walls? Or maybe some vintage books to add character to your shelf? I could check the pulp section of the shop, I still have a discount there,” Bilbo suggests, one arm curled around Thorin’s thick waist while he dramatically gestures with the other. Bilbo fucking loves decorating in this very specific way that celebrates needless clutter and things _looking cool_ rather than _serving a purpose._ Bofur has nothing against it, but he’s definitely not trying to bring _more_ shit into the house. He feels like he’s too old for that, now. 

“Nah, I’m still at the ‘violent purging’ phase. Like, I really had _three_ Killing the Dragon shirts. Which, like—the cover is sick—but it’s not even in my top three Dio albums, so. Two had to go.” 

Thorin shoots a look at him. “Bilbo will take one. He’s a massive Dio fan now.” 

“What?! Who’s Dio? I am _not_ a massive fan I don’t even—”

“They have the song ‘Rainbow in the Dark.’ You said you liked it,” Thorin interrupts, looking down at Bilbo like he thinks both his indignance _and_ his ignorance are the most precious and holy things in the universe. Bofur wishes someone would look at _him_ like that, and then he immediately shakes his head, quelling that wish with silence, with dirty laundry water, with darkness. He shouldn’t be _consciously_ indulging his loneliness. The pervasive _subconscious_ plague of it is enough. 

“Oh. The rainbow song. I do quite like that song,” Bilbo murmurs against Thorin’s beard, which he has started growing out, probably since he doesn't have time to groom his facial hair given all the dick he’s sucking. Bofur kicks himself, then, shaking his head and yanking on the flaps of his ushanka. He doesn’t want to think about dick-sucking. He _can’t_ think about dick-sucking. It will make him fucking cry in this laundromat. 

Thorin and Bilbo kiss for a while then, pressed up against the glass of their washer. It is not until Bofur clears his throat that Bilbo finally pulls away with a wet sound. “Really,” he says, turning back to Bofur like he didn’t just have his tongue down Thorin’s throat. “If you want any advice, or more push pins, let me know.” 

“I might want more books for Sigrid,” Bofur says, worrying the end of his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. “She _devoured_ those dragon-rider ones you gave me. So, anything else like that, I’ll happily buy off you.” 

“Sigrid…oh! Your young ward! I’m so happy she liked them!” Bilbo exclaims. 

Thorin drags him into his arms and buries his face in his hair. “Young ward,” he repeats. “I love you. I love the weird way you talk.” 

“I’m just English,” Bilbo reminds him, squirming complacently in his embrace. 

Bofur watches them, and his heart fucking hurts. Yesterday, he felt so _good_ about getting to suck Bard off twice in one day. To touch his stomach with tentative fingers. To feel that strong hand cup the back of his head. But now, watching Bilbo and Thorin, those moments all seem so tragically _meager_ compared to what he’s witnessing. He tries to imagine cuddling Bard, and the mere _thought_ makes his stomach swoop so wildly that he pitches forward, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands. “Ugh,” he says, because that’s how he’s feeling, and it’s not like Bilbo and Thorin will hear him. 

However, this time they do. “I’m sorry,” Bilbo says automatically, twisting out of Thorin’s grip. “We’re _trying_ to be better about that. Kili scolded us yesterday.” 

“It’s not—it’s _fine._ It’s. I’m glad you guys are happy, and you should show it, I’m just—”

“The milf,” Thorin says sagely, crossing his arms over his chest and gripping his elbows, probably to keep from reflexively gripping Bilbo instead. “Gloin told us.” 

Bofur’s gaze shoots up to Thorin, scandalized as he stares into his ice-blue eyes, trying to detect any indication that he might _know_ more than he says, that he might be able to see through the layers of white-lie and into the withered black-truth beneath it all with his supersonic gay powers. “What did he tell you?” he asks, suspiciously. 

Thorin shrugs. “That there was a woman. At your new job, a neighbor or something. And that you were in love with her.” 

“I’m not _in love with her,”_ Bofur snaps, heart clenching sudden and tight like it’s been prodded at. “It’s more of a—I don’t know what she wants and it’s stressful. And I think I’m more into her than she’s into me. I don’t know. I don’t understand women,” he adds awkwardly, hating himself the moment it leaves his lips. He could be _honest_ with Bilbo and Thorin, maybe they’d even have some relevant fucking advice about what’s happening with Bard. But he just—he doesn’t even know what to say. _I have given my employer three blowjobs, and I like it_ way _more than I know what to do with. Also, I keep saying things wrong and making him sad, and I don’t know why. Double also, I am his children’s nanny, his wife is dead, neither of us are gay, and everything about it is an absolute mess._ He bites his tongue, and he must look so fucking miserable because Bilbo actually walks over and pats his shoulder sympathetically. 

“You need a break,” he says. “You’ve been working way too much. I hardly see you, I've knocked on your door three times this week to see if you want to hang out and smoke with me while I study and you’re never there.” 

Bofur looks at him pitifully. “You did?” 

“Yes!” Bilbo says, cheeks pinking up because he probably _knows_ he hasn’t been the best or most supportive friend in the world in the last few months. “How about you come to our impromptu cinema night to get your mind off the milf! Ori and Nori and Fili and Kili and Thorin and I were going to marathon some horror movies tonight, ones I haven’t seen because apparently I’m a—Thorin, love, what did Nori call me?” 

“An uncultured bastard,” Thorin pipes up from where he’s still leaning against the row of washers, checking his phone. “Bofur, he hasn’t even seen _Tremors._ It’s a disgrace.” 

Bofur exaggeratedly gasps. “You _are_ an uncultured bastard,” he says, grabbing Bilbo’s shoulder and rocking him back and forth for emphasis. “How did you live through the ‘90s without seeing _Tremors_?! It’s a classic. _Kevin Bacon. Sexy,_ ‘90s Kevin Bacon.” 

“ _Well,”_ Bilbo says, wrenching away and frowning. “I’m _English._ And squeamish. And Kevin Bacon is in plenty of movies _without_ scary stuff, so. Anyway, it’s fine, we’re remedying the situation this evening. And _now_ you are invited, so bring your weed and I will provide the popcorn and you can forget _all_ about your lady love. Sorry, your lady who you are _not_ in love with.” 

Bofur’s washer suddenly dings to announce that it is done, and for some reason, it makes him feel like he’s not allowed to refuse. Plus, it would be good for him, probably. To hang out with his friends. To see some giant sand-worms kick some ass. To get so high he can hear colors and forget the way Bard’s fucking _soap_ smells. He plasters on an agreeable grin. “I’m in,” he says. 

—-

The movie night turns out to be a bit of a bust. 

Firstly, Bofur smokes _way_ too much. He ends up breaking into his stash and packing a bowl while he waits for the last load to finish up in the dryer, so by the time they even _start_ the movie an hour or two later, he’s already fairly toasty. Then he smokes everyone else out once they bed down on the living room floor with the popcorn. But after that, he just _keeps smoking_ because he keeps thinking about Bard, and he _really,_ really wants to fucking _stop._

Secondly, Bilbo isn’t _just_ an uncultured bastard, he’s _genuinely terrified_ , so much so that he keeps burrowing his face into the hairy ditch between Thorin’s pectoral muscles every time tension starts building on screen, cowering and whimpering. It happens so frequently, he has no idea what’s going on, and they have to keep pausing and rewinding while Kili pedantically explains what he missed before they can proceed. Bofur at first thinks this is just a ploy for Bilbo to grope Thorin in front of everyone, but then he _actually screams_ at some point and makes everyone feel his heart after the fact, which is, indeed, dramatically thundering in this chest, and Bofur then realizes he’s just legitimately that scared of imaginary sand-worms. “We live in a city, Bilbo, they can’t get you,” he says reassuringly, hoping that will soothe his nerves, but it does no such thing. As a result, _Tremors_ , which has a perfectly reasonable running time of one hour and thirty-six minutes, ends up taking _well_ over two hours. 

Thirdly, Killi invites over some tall redhead girl he’s apparently seeing, and halfway through the movie, they awkwardly and _noisily_ start making out on the couch, which Thorin _hates_ because apparently Thorin is a hypocrite when it comes to noisy making out. Bofur suspects it’s because Killi is his nephew and also the making out in question is heterosexual, and Thorin can be judgmental when it comes to heterosexuality (which Bofur supposes is fair, given the way heterosexuals tend to regard Thorin and the way _he_ lives). Still, the whole night becomes insufferably painful. They finish _Tremors_ and put on _The Thing_ , but it's a slow movie, and several minutes in, Bilbo starts to yawn, and Thorin has already _had_ it with the making-out situation, so they go to bed. 

And so, Bofur is left watching one of the most tense and uncomfortable movies in the world with Ori and Nori (who did not even _invite_ him to this event) and Kili and his girlfriend, who are getting increasingly heated on the couch. _While he is extremely high._ He stares at the screen with increasingly watery eyes, pretending to be so riveted by the long, quiet snow landscapes that he hardly notices the taut and painful tension building around him. 

Ori excuses himself for tea and never comes back. 

Nori dramatically gets up five minutes later and throws the remote control onto the couch. 

Kili squeaks when it hits his leg, goes still, and then resumes whatever horrible thing he was already doing. 

Bofur gets his phone out, chest tight and aching, the feelings that have been steadily building inside him into a wordless tempest finally crashing against his ribcage like a storm tide. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he automatically types out _I miss you_ with numb fingers. Then he sends it to Bardbecause it’s the truth, and he’s stupid and stoned and stupid and Bard—Bard is the person he _thinks_ of, now, whenever he feels alone in crowded rooms. 

Bard takes an eternity to text back. So long that Bofur’s eyes start to water and sting, and he feels paranoid about blinking lest he jinx the likelihood of Bard texting back at all. So long that he’s absolutely _positive_ he has fucked up his job so royally that when he _does_ hear from Bard, it will be to fire him. So long that the dog in _The Thing_ gets possessed and dies, and no one even witnesses it except Bofur. Alone in crowded rooms, perpetual and forevermore. 

Finally, his phone buzzes. Heart in his throat, he unlocks it to read, only to realize it was just a _minute and a half_ that Bard failed to text back, not an eternity at all. He’s so high time, is _warping._

The relief of this revelation is short-lived, though, because Bard’s response reads: _you can come over if you’d like. I'm drinking bad wine and watching worse TV. could use some company :)_

Bofur stares at it, blinking at the harsh blue glow of his phone in the darkness, eyes stinging as he focuses on the smiley face, heart pounding. He really wants to come over, of course. He wants it so badly that he’s already kicking up off the floor and stumbling to the door before he remembers he’s not wearing shoes and is also probably too high to drive. He stands, dumbfounded for a moment by the door until it occurs to him that he can always _bike_ high, especially this late when there probably aren’t even any cars on the road. So he tugs on his Docs, stuffs the laces inside without actually tying them, and drops his keys on Kili’s girlfriend’s back since he can’t see any of Kili underneath her. She shrieks and sits up, batting at her back. 

“Hey,” Bofur says awkwardly, trying to take advantage of the small window of time he thinks he has before they dive back into each other. Kili blinks hazily up at him, looking confused, mouth a wet flash in the dark. “M’taking your brother’s bike and leaving my car keys in case he needs to go anywhere. And. Um. Congratulations,” he says before turning to address the girl. “Nice to meet you,” he lies, as it was neither nice _nor_ did he meet her. 

Then, before he can talk himself out of it, he texts Bard _on my way :)_ and he’s out the door and into the chill of the night. 


	6. Before the Tender Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoyyyyy folks, FINALLY we get an honest to god tension break and some (minor and not at all ideal) communication!!! But don't trust them not to fuck it up ;) I love you all, buckle up!

It’s not until Bofur is sailing down College Avenue with the wind buffeting his face so hard he has to take his hat off and clutch it one-handed to his chest lest he lose it in the gust that he realizes he _totally_ forgot a jacket. He forgot to _change._ He’s in tattered old PJ pants with little jack-o-lanterns patterned on them and his one remaining Kill the Dragon shirt. He hasn’t showered since he woke up and still probably smells like weed and Dust-Off. He’s a fucking _mess._ The longer he pedals, the more coherent he feels, like the chilly wind is stealing his high. Or like that _room_ and that _movie_ and that _awful company_ were what was making him feel so fucking out of touch with the world in the first place. In fact, he hardly feels stoned anymore at all as he rolls up to Bard’s street, only sweaty and cold at the same time, gooseflesh on his forearms even though the pits of his t-shirt are sweat-soaked. He’s also really nervous and fucking _confused_ because Bard just— _told him to come over._ After he was very, very weird the last time he saw him. After _everything._ Bofur still doesn’t know what to _do_ with that, really, but he also hates the idea of going on like this, mired in uncertainty over the whole thing, agonizing over every moment he replays on a loop in his head, so he sucks it up and jogs the cement walkway to the front door.

Bard meets him on the porch, wearing his usual sweats and a threadbare white tank-top, as painfully handsome as always. “Hello. I was just starting to think you weren’t coming,” he says, smiling gently and swirling his white wine around in a stemless glass. 

As soon as he sees him, Bofur’s stomach ties itself up and plummets, as solid and heavy as lead. “M’sorry,” he says, following Bard into the house, hands already tingling from all the places he wants to touch but cannot. “I biked over. I’d been smoking and high-cycling seemed safer than high-driving. I don’t know.” 

Bard laughs, which is a good sign. Then he fills a glass for Bofur from one of those shitty Franzia boxes in the fridge. “Please, have some of this. It’s fucking awful and I don’t want to drink it all myself.” 

Bofur wrinkles his nose. “How did you end up with a box of wine?” 

Bard shakes his head, pushing the glass into Bofur’s hand, careful not to touch him in the process. “My mother passed it off on me when I picked up the kids. She didn’t want it and clearly neither did I, but I can’t let anything go to waste, so,” he lifts the glass and peers at it, frowning. “I’m drinking it. Alone, on a Sunday night.” 

“Not alone anymore,” Bofur offers, voice coming out reedy because his throat is so tight. He takes a prudent sip. He hasn’t drank this shit since he was broke in his early twenties, and even _then_ he knew it was bad. After swallowing, he rubs his tongue on the roof of his mouth with a shudder. “God, how do people finish off these entire boxes?” 

“Alcoholism,” Bard offers with a clipped smile, throwing more back. He chokes it down, wincing, and they stand in silence there in the kitchen for a moment, Bofur staring at the linoleum, skin crawling because he feels like Bard is staring at him. At his Halloween PJs and sweat-stained shirt. At how unremarkable he is. The silence stretches on, until Bard very tentatively breaks it. “How was your Sunday?” he asks quietly, taking another sip of his wine. He asks it as if they are friends. As if Bofur is just his nanny. As if _nothing_ at all has happened between them in the last several days to shatter pleasantries into something obsolete. 

Bofur doesn’t know what to say, really, so he smiles a defensive smile instead, shaking his head. _I did everything I possibly could to distract myself from thinking about you, and then I ended up biking to your house at midnight, so you see how well that worked out. And that was my Sunday. That was the whole fucking thing._ “Oh, you know,” he says instead, forcing a mock-nonchalant shrug. “I cleaned, did laundry, watched movies. The usual, except, boring, because I wasn’t at work.” 

And Bard is silent again, hovering there a few feet away from Bofur, saying _nothing,_ offering _nothing,_ clarifying _nothing._ The air between them is stretched taut to the point of inducing panic, and Bofur is trying to fight through the remnants of his high to think of a single helpful or relevant or _funny_ thing to say that will cut through and dissipate this unbearable tension when Bard suddenly sets his own wineglass down on the kitchen counter with a decisive _clink._

 _“_ Fuck it,” he says, and then he’s walking up, stepping in, pinning Bofur between his body and the counter’s edge, and kissing him full on the mouth. 

Bofur feels time stop. He feels himself come apart, fraying into ribbons, like something fragile shot at point-blank range. He freezes for a moment, but then he’s surging into it breathlessly, stunned by the way one of Bard’s hands is splayed wide over the shape of his hip, the other cupping his cheek, holding him in place so that he could not twist away even if that was what he wanted. It’s _not_ what he wants, though. He wants to taste, to drown, to suffocate. He touches Bard in a frantic, graceless fury, hand mauling up his back, into his hair, back down again to grip vice-tight on his narrow waist and pull him in so that they are pressed flush. Their mouths are nothing but hot, slick fever-drags for a moment, gasping around gales of breath, but then Bard slots their lips right and licks into Bofur’s mouth, and, _god,_ that bad wine tastes so much better on his tongue, on his breath.

Bofur sucks on it, groaning without meaning to as he palms up to the back of Bard’s neck to hold him in place, in case he’s even thinking about pulling away. _Stay, stay, god, please, stay,_ he thinks in time with his own frantic heartbeat, loving the rasp of facial hair against his lips, the heat of skin beneath his fingers, the maddening shift of their hips as they grind and lock together. _Stay. Stay. Stay._

 _“Fuck,”_ Bard curses as they part only to breathe, their brows pressed together, Bofur’s thumb pressed into the sweet thunder of Bard’s racing pulse. “Been wanting to do this. I can’t stop thinking about your mouth,” he murmurs then. 

It’s so much, so overwhelming that a wave of prickling heat washes over Bofur’s body at the words, making him shiver and choke out an awed, disbelieving laugh. “Why didn’t you do it then?” he asks. _I would have let you. I would have done anything you wanted._ Bard shakes his head, eyes sliding shut as he dips close enough their lips brush, slick and lovely, breath huffing out wine-sweet over each other’s mouths. 

“I thought you might not want me to,” he admits then, licking the corner of Bofur’s smile as he pants, palms rubbing over his stomach and chest before they cup gently behind his neck. “I was afraid that wasn’t what this was.” 

“God,” Bofur mumbles before he steals a wet, deep kiss, then a few more, reminding himself with each press of Bard’s teeth behind the softness of flesh that he isn’t _stealing,_ that Bard wants this. Wants his mouth. Has been thing about it. “M’sorry. I—it is what this is. If you want it to be. A kissing thing, I mean.” 

“Yes I do, so much,” Bard tells him, biting his lower lip, shuddering as Bofur touches him under his shirt experimentally. His chest is heaving so that he fills Bofur’s needy palms with every inhalation, his skin hot to the touch and so insanely smooth that Bofur can’t get enough. He’s lost in it, staring at the motion of his own hands under the shift of cotton for a moment, Bard’s heart hammering under his life line. “Please, come here, let me,” Bard begs eventually, and so Bofur allows himself to be pulled in for another kiss, and another, until all the kisses blend into a sea, and he drowns in the riptide. 

They kiss so long that Bofur’s lips are swollen, there’s spit in his mustache, and his lower back aches from being pressed into the counter. Long enough that his vision keeps whiting out, long enough that there’s a wet spot on the inside of his boxers from his own cock, which is hard and leaking just from this, from _holding_ Bard close and sucking his tongue and touching him under his shirt. Eventually, Bard pulls away but only to mouth down Bofur’s neck, up behind his ear, mouth a slick, hungry, breathless thing. “Let’s move to the couch,” he says. “Please.” 

“Fuck yeah,” Bofur agrees, letting Bard make fists in his shirt and steer him out of the kitchen. He’s weak and sloppy and _profoundly_ turned on. He didn’t even fully _realize_ how badly he wants this— _needs_ it. Bard’s lips puffy from his own teeth, the taste of his gasps filling his lungs. The feel of his hard cock grinding into his thigh, heat bleeding through the layers of their clothes. _God._ He thumps down onto the couch on his back, hat falling to the floor as Bard climbs on top of him, bracketing his hips between his knees, threading fingers through his messy hair.

“You’ll stay tonight?” Bard asks, voice nothing but a low rumble against Bofur’s throat as he kisses him there, licks over the jut of his Adam’s apple. 

“What? Yeah, of course—course I’ll stay,” Bofur murmurs, pressing his face into Bard’s hair and inhaling, taking it down from his half-bun so he can make a proper fist in the thickness of the loose waves. He’s not sure why it's important that he say so: _obviously_ he’s staying the night, it was late when he got here, so it _must_ be late right now. Still, Bard softens once those words touch the air. He gives Bofur his full weight, becomes heavy and sweet as he lies on top of him and kisses him deep, one hand cupped over his jaw, thumbing up and down the bone of it. All of this feels good, _insanely,_ mind-blowingly good. But that—the gentle way Bard’s touching his face—makes Bofur’s stomach drop the hardest. He clutches back at him, wraps one arm around his waist and the other around his shoulders, then pulls him close so there’s nothing between them, no breath, no space. 

They grind against each other with increasing fervor until Bard’s hand starts to drift lower, fitting between the insistent drag of their bodies to cup Bofur’s cock and rub up and down, firm and hungry and not _at all_ afraid. Bofur would wonder if he’d done this before, if he could think at all, but he’s a _mess,_ panting against the couch cushions and scrubbing his lips raw on the stubble of Bard’s jaw. He hasn’t really _thought_ of being touched before, only of _doing_ the touching. Being useful, giving pleasure. Bard’s warm, insistent hand is almost too much to process, and he just _melts_ into the sensation, his body jerking with involuntary leaps and shudders. 

Just when Bard starts to hook his fingers into the waistband of Bofur’s PJ pants, there’s a rustle in the hallway and the sound of an opening door. They both freeze, breath labored enough that they move in time with it, alternating gasps making them rise and fall. “Da?” a tiny, confused voice murmurs, followed by a door clicking open.

“Shit,” Bard mumbles, pushing up off the couch to smooth his clothes and tidy his hair. “Tilda’s awake,” he says then, before dipping down and pressing a sweet, lingering kiss to the corner of Bofur’s mouth. “M’gonna put her back to bed. Stay here. Then meet me in my room.” 

“Okay,” Bofur whispers, pulse speeding, stomach clenching tight and longing around how effortlessly _confident_ Bard sounds just _demanding_ that. _Meet me in my room._ He lies there trying his hardest to be still and silent, clutching a couch pillow to his chest as if it could muffle the wild, frantic thunder of his heart. He's painfully hard in his PJs, the whole of the night stacked against him like a fragile house of cards, poised to collapse. He can’t believe any of this is happening, really, and if he thinks about it too hard, he starts to doubt the fabric of reality, so he chooses to fill his head with static, instead. He just lies there and waits, listening to Bard’s muffled whispers, the creak of Tilda’s bed under his weight, the ticking of the clock on the mantle. Once he hears her door shut, he stands, holds his breath, and hurries down the hall to let himself into Bard’s room, heart pounding. 

Bofur has _been_ here before, it’s not like this is the first time he’s seeing Bard’s bed. He’s straightened up the aftershave bottles and picture frames on his dresser when he dusts, he’s put his ironed shirts away in his closet and made up his bed with new sheets. He’s tried not to look at his pillows or bedside table, warring against the distinct form of shame that bubbles up in his chest whenever he feels drawn to perceive something of Bard’s that feels innately too intimate to witness. But still, he’s _been here._ He’s touched Bard’s belongings, pulled fitted sheets over his mattress. 

And yet it feels weird and scary and stomach-turning to actually _lie down_ in it. His cock is still half-hard in his pants, eyes glued to the ceiling in the dark, forehead too-cool without the comfort of his hat ever-resting on his brow. 

He’s not sure what to do, really. Should he undress? Should he turn on the light? Should he get under the covers? Should he touch himself? His mind is an absolute mess of firing impulses, everything weed-fuzzy and arousal-dulled, tangled like knotgrass. He eventually flicks on a bedside lamp so he doesn’t obsess over the shadows too much, but luckily before he starts to genuinely freak out, Bard lets himself in, looking tired but happy, eyes heavy but mouth still swollen and smiling. Bofur sits up, heart ricocheting up into his throat as their eyes meet with an electric crackle across the room. “I’m so sorry,” Bard murmurs, carding a hand through his hair as he climbs onto the bed. He lowers himself onto his side inches away from Bofur without touching him, and it drives Bofur _crazy—_ the distance, the tension. “She’s back in bed. Had a nightmare, but knocked out again once I tucked her in. How are you?” he asks, brows knitting together a bit, eyes flashing mahogany-dark. 

Bofur laughs because he always laughs when he’s put on the spot, when he feels like he needs to defend himself. “I’m—I’m great. Sort of in shock, but great, overall,” he admits. He reaches out to lay his hand on Bard’s forearm gingerly. 

Bard shifts to tangle their fingers instead, and Bofur so suddenly can’t breathe. “Why shock?” 

“I don’t know,” Bofur lies. _Shocked because you actually want me and haven’t seemed to realize yet I’m not actually worth wanting. Shocked because you keep touching me. Because you told me to get in your bed. Because you’re here with me, holding my hand, and it’s been so fucking long since I held hands with someone, I don’t know how to do it right. “_ Because I was at my house smoking and watching movies, like, a few hours ago. And m’here now. And you kissed me.” 

Bard licks his lips and shifts closer, cock visibly tenting his sweats in this way that’s difficult to ignore. “I’d like to kiss you again,” he whispers, pressing their foreheads together, inhaling Bofur’s exhalations as his knees bump up against him clumsily, like he wants to tangle their legs into an unsolvable puzzle. “I’d like to kiss you all night, if that’s okay.” 

Bofur sucks in a shaky breath and realizes he cannot speak. Not even to say _please, please. Kiss me all night. Kiss me forever._ Instead, he curls his fingers around Bard’s jaw, feeling out the bone of it under the shape of his palm as he drags him closer, and fits their mouths together. Bard melts into the subduction, tongue wet, breath stretched over a groan. “It’s okay,” Bofur murmurs into their kisses as he slots closer, fitting himself against Bard’s angles, softness pressing into the jut of bone. “Definitely okay.” 

Bard rolls on top of him, parts his thighs so that he can thrust against the junction between them, every sensation so maddening that Bofur whites out, lost to pressure and friction and heat, his hands threaded through the wreck of Bard’s hair as they kiss, and kiss, and _kiss,_ like kissing is fucking. Like it's the whole point. 

Eventually, Bard reels back to pant, gazing down at Bofur, who is all sloppy and hard and debauched on his bedsheets in his stupid Halloween PJs. But before Bofur has time to worry about how absurd he looks, Bard reaches down to palm over him. “I want to suck your cock,” he says, thumbing over the head through the thin layer of cotton, making Bofur lock up and hiss. “Will you let me do that for you?” 

“Aye,” Bofur chokes out, fighting the powerful urge to joke, to dissipate, to deny. He hasn’t even _thought_ about Bard using his mouth on him yet, since imagining being on the receiving end of pleasure with Bard has felt like blasphemy more than a fantasy, up until this point. He’ll do so much, he _wants_ so much. But he doesn’t expect a single thing in return, so if he lets himself, he could feel overwhelmed to tears at the mere offer. “If that’s—if you actually want to do it. I don’t need it. I don’t expect it.” 

“I want to,” Bard murmurs, feeling him out through his pants, breath coming out stilted and raw. His eyes are so dark, but they’re full of feeling, wet to the brim, lapping against the overflow. “Desperately.” 

The word twists deep in Bofur’s gut, silencing him as he swallows helplessly, nodding. It’s enough for Bard, though, who dips down and sucks at his neck, stubble scraping pure and lovely as he licks his way lower, makes a fist in his shirt, and pushes it up Bofur’s chest to bunch it around his throat, exposing the whole of him to be kissed. 

It’s weird, having someone lick down his chest, suck on his nipples, rub slow and tender up his torso, as if counting his ribs. Bard is so fit and lovely, but in comparison, Bofur is just—a guy. He’s always been thin, but years of pizza and drinking caught up to him when he turned thirty, and he’s had a bit of a beer-belly ever since. It’s never bothered him, he’s hardly even _thought_ about it, but Bard is pressing his mouth to it over and over again, using his lips, his teeth, his tongue, and he’s _forced_ to think about it, now. To wonder what the fuck Bard finds attractive about him. Why on earth he finds his body desirable enough to worship. 

He’s not used to a lover paying attention to the parts of him that hardly count. His flaws, and creases, and scars. _You don’t have to do that, you can get right to the dick-sucking bit if you want,_ Bofur thinks of saying, but his voice is snagged in his throat, spine arching up off the mattress and lungs filled with gasps because, _fuck,_ it’s so _nice_ to be kissed all over. To shiver because there’s spit on his skin. To writhe under hungry, roving hands. He wants to touch _Bard_ this way, most definitely, but it feels so wildly foreign to _receive_ the gifts he craves to give. Luckily, the storm of it feels so fucking good that he’s too distracted by weathering it to _stop_ Bard. He just lies back with his eyes scrunched shut and takes it. 

“God,” Bard murmurs when he finally grows tired of Bofur’s stomach, his hips, his happy trail. “You’re so _hard_. You’re wet,” he groans, making a fist around him through his PJs, thumbing over the damp fabric before he hooks his fingers into Bofur’s waistband and pulls it down beneath his balls. His cock bobs, heavy and thick a half-second, but only for that. Bard wastes no time swallowing him down, face crumpling as he sucks, drool bubbling out from the seal of his lips. 

It’s _heaven._ Better than Bofur’s own hand, better than anyone else’s mouth has ever felt. His thighs tense and flicker, stomach tightening as his cock pulses in the incredible, burning suction. He grabs one of Bard’s pillows and drags it over his face to stifle what he feels like is a reflexive cry, stunned by the way Bard is still _touching_ him. Palming over his thighs and stomach with his free hand, jacking him off with the other so the curl of his own fist meets his lips on the upstroke. He’s _definitely_ sucked cock before, Bofur is sure of it. There’s a practiced, attentive familiarity to Bard’s motions, like this is something he’s coming back to, settling into after a long time away. It’s both extremely hot and extremely intimidating. 

Bard confirms his suspicions as he pulls off, plush-wet lips connected to the crown of Bofur’s cock with a filament of spit that shines in the glow of the bedside lamp. “I missed this,” he mumbles, eyes shut in bliss as he rubs his cheek against Bofur’s shaft, stubble rasping so that he flinches, gasps. 

“What, sucking dick?” Bofur asks in a daze, voice muffled by the pillow still half on his face. “You’ve done this before?” 

Bard raises his eyebrows in elegant arcs, nose and lips buried in the thick brown thatch of Bofur’s pubic hair curling at the base of his cock. “More than a few times, in college,” he says as he pulls back to kiss over the shape of Bofur’s hip bone, cheeks flushed, mouth the most lovely, swollen wreck. “I went to Berkeley,” he admits before he grins. Bofur is stunned to silence by the white flash of his teeth, like a sliver of waning moon. “I was a free spirit, in those days. My wife and I both were. We had lots of fun, together and also, not.” 

Bofur tries to reconcile this with the pure, orderly, white-picket fence image he’s long-entertained of Bard’s marriage and fails. It’s too much for this moment, too much to locate amid the fog, the hunger, the longing, the smoke. He lets it go and lets his head fall back down onto the bed, hips rolling reflexively as Bard teases his fingers up his cock, slicked in saliva. 

“Well damn,” he says, eyes fluttering closed because he’s sick of analyzing the cracks in this particular ceiling. His cock throbs in Bard’s grip, making it difficult to think of anything else, _say_ anything else. “The first time with you—in the living room…it was a first, for me,” he admits. He’s not even sure _why,_ really, save for the fact that he’s realizing they’re _different,_ have different backgrounds, different experiences, and he feels like Bard ought to _know_ that he has no idea what he’s doing, that he will likely fuck up if they continue on this trajectory, hurtling toward the sun with their wings of wax and feather. 

Bard actually laughs at him, the rumble of it making him jump and twist. “Really? You’re joking,” he says then, thumbing up and down Bofur’s side, digging into tender, never-touched skin. Bofur stares at this weird place he’s being caressed, just below the dip of his waist. He’s not sure anyone has ever touched him there before. He’s not sure if he’s touched _himself_ there before. He’s not even sure this site on his body _existed_ before Bard touched it with longing, prudent fingers. It makes his breath catch. 

“Really,” he says, uncementing a hand from the bedspread to splay it over his own chest. “Scout’s honor.” 

Bard shakes his head before turning and licking a stripe up the underside of Bofur’s cock without breaking eye contact, gaze hooded, hot, dark. “I couldn’t tell,” he says then, before he starts to suck again. 

It makes Bofur blush spectacularly, so he hides his face in the pillow, trying to catch his breath as Bard licks him, mouth so sloppy and sweet and warm. So _practiced._ His breath comes out in a whine as he fucks into that impossible heat, one hand coming down to card through Bard’s hair, which is so soft, so clean, fucking _perfect._ God. He wants him so _badly,_ he’s gonna finish so quick, pushed to the edge of this precipice with hardly anything. Instead of fighting, he gives himself over to it, so fucking _exhausted_ already from the fear of fighting whatever it is he feels for Bard. The riptide, the storm. He just lets it take him, cedes to a mess of graceless thrusts, breathless moans, tightening fists. 

Just as he’s getting close, Bard withdraws, gasping, to jack him off, burying his face into his pubic hair and inhaling, mouthing down the insides of his thighs, breath hot and labored and explosive. “I want you to fuck me with this cock sometime,” he begs then, teeth pressed to the flickering plane of Bofur’s quad, eyes flint-black and stricken with pupil as he strokes him with a firm, reverent grip. 

_Jesus Christ._ It’s another thing he’s never thought about, another thing he hasn’t considered as a possibility because it’s so intimate, so raw, so _real._ Bofur would never assume Bard would _give_ him something so real. “You’d let me do that?” he chokes out, wrapping Bard’s hair around his wrist, cutting off his own circulation with it, nails razing desperately over his scalp as his cock flexes, precum dripping on his own thigh, sliding over Bard’s knuckles. 

Bard licks it up, groaning with his eyes shut, face crumpled and red with feeling. “Yes. One hundred times over. I’d beg for it. “ 

“Fuck— _god,_ fucking _shit,_ Bard—you don’t have to beg. Of course I would. I’d fuck you so good. I’d come inside you,” Bofur chokes out, and just like that, he’s coming _onto_ him instead, shooting off sudden and unexpected. The first parabola lands on Bard’s cheek, but he sinks down to swallow the rest, moaning greedily all the while, sucking _hard_ with his cheeks hollowed like he’s milking Bofur’s cock, like he wants every drop, and it’s so much fucking more than Bofur bargained for tonight that he feels like he’s going to _cry._ He hides his face in Bard’s pillow and inhales the smell of his shampoo from it in desperate gasps, stomach muscles spasming and shuddering for a long time beneath the idle motion of Bard’s palm. 

Bard nurses Bofur’s cock until it starts to soften, and then he lets it slide from his mouth to kiss it instead, sweet and feather-light, with his lashes a dark half-moon across his cheek and smudged in wet, crystalline fractals because Bofur’s eyes are very wet when he sneaks a look. “Wow,” he says eventually, throat hoarse like _he_ was the one who sucked cock. “You could teach me a thing or two. That was amazing.” 

“Mmm,” Bofur murmurs, nuzzling up under his soft, wet cock, still idly licking like he just wants to taste his sweat, his musk. “You did me a favor,” he confesses then. “That— that was exactly what I wanted.” 

“C’mere, let me get you off,” Bofur murmurs, gesturing loosely in the air with listless fingers. He’s so dizzy, and he can still see stars, but he wants to taste Bard, too. It’s all he thinks about, anyway. 

Bard doesn’t let him put it in his mouth, though. He kisses him deep and hungry instead after guiding his hand up to his erection, hissing as Bofur clumsily jacks him off. But it doesn’t matter how unpracticed he is at this particular angle, Bard is mostly just fucking into the ring of Bofur’s fist, spine snapping, groans huffing up into the slick mess of their kisses until he locks up, cries out, and finishes all over Bofur’s chest. 

He collapses then, deadweight to be encircled in Bofur’s arms as he draws him close, presses his kiss-wet face into his hair, sucking him in. “You keep ruining my shirts. And I officially only have, like. Six. I gave all my clothes away today.” 

Bard laughs breathlessly, shoulders rocking in Bofur’s grip. Still, he does not let go. This is exactly where he wants Bard. “Why’d you do that?” he asks, half-assing an attempt to wipe the come up between them before getting soft and boneless in Bofur’s arms again, not seeming to care too much that there’s a mess between them, spit and stickiness and a sheen of sweat. It feels dirty, and Bofur likes that. He wants Bard’s dirtiness. He wants him ruined and un-put-together and messy against the thunder of his own heart. 

“I dunno. Because I haven’t changed up my wardrobe since I was, like, nineteen. Same old collection of tour shirts and hoodies and torn-up jeans.” 

“And novelty pajamas?” Bard asks, worming a finger into a hole in the knee of his pants. “I like it. I like the way you dress. It’s charming.” 

Bofur colors, squirming as he grins. He’s never been called _charming_ before. It feels very nice, even if it’s not at all true. “So,” he says conversationally, even though his heart has hardly slowed from coming and is picking right back up again in anticipation of the subject he’s preparing to broach. “You want me to fuck you? For reals? Because I’ll have you know, that wasn’t feigned innocence back there, Friday really _was_ my first time interacting with another man’s dick outside weird, repressed locker-room comparisons I pretended were normal. So as much as I’d very much like to do that, I don’t know where to start.” 

He feels Bard smile against his chest. “Yes, I do want you to. But not tonight, or tomorrow. Or even next week. We can talk about it later. Work up to it,” he murmurs. “I’ll show you how.” 

It’s such a massive relief to hear him discuss this as if it’s most definitely going to be a recurring, regular thing. Regular enough to build to an event. Bofur lets out a breath he hardly realized he was holding, fingers rubbing up and down Bard’s spine. “Alright, sounds reasonable. Challenge accepted,” he mumbles then as he ghosts his lips over Bard’s sweaty brow. He can still smell the traces of his soap and deodorant, which are both very nice, but _mostly_ Bard just smells like _himself_ right now: man and spice and salt. It’s dizzyingly good, and Bofur wants to pass out here with his face buried in it. “You gonna let me sleep on the bed or should I caravan out to the couch for old times’ sake?” he asks. 

Bard sits up to reach over Bofur’s body to flick off the bedside lamp. “Stay,” he says once they’re cloaked in sudden black, finding Bofur’s mouth in the dark and pressing a wet, open-mouthed kiss to it. “Stay.” 

And Bofur thumbs up his tears in the darkness so they do not stain Bard’s pillow and does as he’s told. 

—-

It becomes very clear, very quickly that Bofur probably won’t be sleeping much tonight. 

He’s fucking exhausted, but as soon as the lights are out and he settles onto his side in his usual comma-curled position, Bard sidles up next to him and loops a heavy arm around his waist. Immediately, Bofur freezes, and his heart begins to pound under the loose splay of Bard’s warm palm. Never in his wildest fucking _dreams_ did he anticipate actually _snuggling_ after sex. He’s a big snuggler, actually, the snuggling it _self_ is not the issue. More the way it exists in an entirely different category in his brain than the _casual sex with the guy who pays you to babysit his kids_ category. 

Bard notices his reaction and hums lightly against the back of his neck, thumbing over the frantic thud. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Would you like me to move?” 

And the thing is, Bofur _doesn’t_ want that, not really. He _wants_ to be close to Bard, he wants to feel his body so close, the hot, reassuring press of it, the smell of his sweat and sheets enveloping them both, womb-tight. Bofur is so fucking touch-starved, he’ll soak up whatever contact he can get until the well dries up. He’s just not _used_ to this sort of intimacy. Idle touch. Another man’s breath moving his hair over his neck. Another man’s _arms_ around him while he sleeps. It’s a lot. “No,” he eventually says, settling back into the solidity of Bard’s chest and laying his palm tentatively over his forearm, smoothing up the sinewy muscles of it. “I like you here,” he admits, heart going crazy in his chest as he says it. 

“Good,” Bard says, kissing behind his ear. “It’s what I miss most, actually, more than sex. Just. Sharing a bed with someone. Sleeping.” 

“Oh,” Bofur murmurs, breath catching as he swallows nervously. He thumbs thoughtfully over Bard’s knuckles as he processes this, memorizing the bones in his hands, the easy shift of skin over them. He loves Bard’s hands. He noticed them the first time he met him, and he hasn’t stopped noticing. “I’ll try not to steal the covers or wiggle around too much, then, but full disclosure, I haven’t had a proper spooning in probably—m’whole life.” 

“How tragic,” Bard mumbles, shifting closer, even though there’s no distance between them to crush, and all he's doing is bucking up against Bofur and moving him an inch or so across the bed with the force of his hips. It is ineffective but very sweet, and it makes Bofur’s stomach drop, a reflexive smile flickering across his face in the dark. “Never? No girlfriends?” 

“Plenty of girlfriends. But, like, cuddling on the couch during a movie girlfriends, not, like. Live-in, sleep together in beds regularly girlfriends…I feel like every time I’ve shared a bed with a girl we just drunk-fucked and then rolled over and passed out. Most of my bed-sharing memories are me and, like, ten other guys shoved into a shitty motel room during tour. Even then I usually opt to sleep in the bathroom. Half the lads in my bands snore like chainsaws.” Bofur barks out a laugh then, wondering why he’s always got to shoot himself in the foot and make his life sound as gross and unglamorous as possible. “Not very romantic,” he adds. 

Bard lifts his arm, and Bofur thinks he’s gonna let him go, but instead he just pushes his hand _up_ his shirt instead of laying on top of it, fingers smoothing through his chest hair, finding skin. Then he settles back down, twining their legs from behind. Bofur can hardly breathe. “I’m glad I'm the one tasked with remedying this sad tale,” he says then, breath hot against the back of his neck. 

Bofur’s eyes feel very stingy and wet again. He doesn’t know what to _do_ with all this—with the way Bard is treating him with such closeness, such tenderness, such _desire_. He needs to tell himself that it’s not going anywhere, he needs to be reminded that it _can’t._ Things like this don’t happen to people like him, and he’s done a very good job of cheerfully owning his loneliness without letting it get him down up until this point all because he _knows_ this _._ Knows that this is the way of the world.He knows he’s a replacement, a warm body to fill an aching void, and he’s alright with it, he thinks, as long as he stays afloat and doesn’t let himself sink too deep. As long as he stops foolishly imagining an impossible future where forty-year-old men get what they want after decades of running from the truth, leaving cities behind choked in dust, guarding their soft interiors with rings of thorns like the heart of an artichoke. 

“Yeah, maybe I’ll get hooked on this whole spooning business,” Bofur mumbles with a yawn, willing his heart to slow beneath the increasingly slack pressure of Bard’s hand. “And have to adopt some giant dog to sleep with me when you get tired of this.” 

Bard hums quietly, lips brushing the back of Bofur’s neck. “Don’t count on that,” he might say. It’s hard to tell because the blood is rushing in Bofur’s head, and Bard is clearly very sleepy, fingers beginning to twitch reflexively, arm growing heavy against Bofur’s waist. Bofur decides to not count on him having said _don’t count on that._ It could have been anything, really, and it’s stupid to hope. 

He closes his eyes, but he knows he won’t fall asleep. He’s too aware of everywhere they’re touching, how _warm_ Bard is, how insane it feels to know he’s somehow comfortable enough with Bofur to drift off right behind him, breath slowing and deepening, limbs sinking into the bed. Bofur doesn’t want to miss a moment of this miracle to the nerveless black of sleep, so he locates himself firmly in the wreck of new sensations: Bard’s forearm under his own palm, Bard’s thighs flush against the backs of his own, Bard’s sleep-breaths expanding his chest so that it presses in steady intervals to his spine. 

It feels so overwhelmingly, stomach-wrenchingly, heartbreakingly _good_. He could definitely get used to it. And he definitely _can’t_. 

“ _Fuck,”_ he says to himself very quietly but with feeling. The night doesn’t answer, though, because she doesn’t care. She is cold and gray and foggy just outside the window, hours away from giving birth to the light of an equally uncaring dawn. When Bofur eventually does drift off, it’s to hazy fitful dreams of rolling over in an empty bed, a handprint burnt onto the skin of his chest, and nothing else to show for having been touched, save for the memory. 

\---

When Bofur _does_ wake up, it’s to the awful, insistent bleat of the ‘80s alarm clock on Bard’s bedside table. His ears hurt and his throat hurts and most of all his _chest_ hurts, plagued by the ache in his solar plexus that inevitably follows a poor night’s sleep. He can hardly care, though, because memories from last night are flooding back to him in a mess of overstimulation and longing and heat and spit. And that, somehow, feels good enough to drown out the discomfort. He rolls over, only half-believing any of it is real, but sure enough Bard is lying there next to him, squinting in the dawn light as he feels blindly beside himself to shut off the alarm. “Ugh,” he mumbles, face scrunched up and sleepy, hair a wreck. Bofur stares at him, head pillowed on his own arm. It seems incomprehensible that he’s _here._ In Bard’s bed. Between Bard’s sheets. Watching Bard wake up. “Good morning,” he croaks, shifting to face Bofur, eyes still scrunched up into little slits. 

Somehow, he’s still the most handsome man in the world, even blinking sleep out of his eyes, a crease from his pillow on his cheek. “Good morning,” Bofur mumbles, wondering if he’s still allowed to kiss him, or if that’s a weird, gross thing to do without having brushed one’s teeth yet. _He_ doesn’t think it's gross, but he doesn't know where Bard stands on such matters. “Just remembered I don’t have clothes _or_ a toothbrush _or_ a car. ” 

Bard sleepily huffs, rubbing his eyes before reaching out and gently cupping the side of Bofur’s face, thumbing over his sideburn before leaning in and kissing him, and Bofur doesn’t have to wonder if it’s gross anymore because it’s _definitely_ not. His stomach twists up and his cheeks burn, and just when his cock is starting to twitch in his pants, Bard pulls away, sighing. “I have an afternoon shift today,” he murmurs against the corner of Bofur’s mouth. Then he rolls onto his back, scrubbing a hand over his chest, leaving Bofur there tingling, wanting more. “I can take the kids to school and you can sleep in. It’ll look far less suspicious than you coming out of my room for breakfast in your PJs. I wouldn’t know how to explain that. Especially not to Sigrid. You know how nosy she is.” 

Bofur glances down at himself, deciding he’s probably right, it _would_ be very telling for them to emerge together. Or even for him to be here _at all,_ with no evidence of him having slept on the couch like he usually does. Plus, he could definitely afford to crash for a few more hours after that restless, tense, wonderful night. His whole body feels like it’s vibrating with deprivation, his heart unsteady in his chest. Though that could be the symptom of other things. Like the fact that he’s _here._ In Bard’s bed. Between Bard’s sheets. Watching Bard wake up. “Alright, I’ll take you up on the offer then,” he concedes, smiling. “I’ll catch a few more winks, then bike home and come back with the car in time to collect the gang of ruffians from school at three.” 

“No. I’ll drop them off, come back, get you, and then drop _you_ off home,” Bard promises, voice decisive, like this is something nonnegotiable. Bofur’s not sure why, but it twists in his gut, makes his mouth suddenly dry. “You can use my toothbrush in the meantime,” Bard adds, and that absolutely does _not_ help with the feeling of overwhelm washing over his body in waves. Bard must mistake Bofur being moved with being disgusted, though, because he raises his eyebrows judgmentally. “What, you live in a squatter frat house with a hundred dirty metalheads but you won’t share someone’s toothbrush after kissing them? Shocking.” 

“Hell, I’ll share someone’s toothbrush even if we _haven’t_ been kissing!” Bofur lies, reaching out with the intention of flicking Bard’s arm. Instead, he just ends up squeezing it, smoothing up over the lanky muscle, watching the skin fold and dimple under his own thumb. “Just surprised _you_ offered. I didn’t peg you for a germ-sharer.” 

“Mm,” Bard hums, before leaning in and pressing one more kiss to Bofur’s mustache where it frames his smile, then pulling away and reluctantly kicking out of the sheets. “I suppose I’m full of surprises then.” 

He stands, cracks his back, stretches, and then heads to the bathroom to take a shower. Once he disappears from sight and the water is running, Bofur rolls over and wills his heart to slow. He won’t be able to fall back asleep if it keeps _racing_ like this, like it’s running from something, like the house is on fire, and he’s suffocating on smoke. 

His eyes are getting heavy by the time Bard comes out in a billow of steam, and he decides it’ll be easier to pretend he’s asleep than to navigate the weirdness of Bard _getting dressed_ with him here. He would normally just joke about such a thing, but he’s too tired to pull off nonchalance right now. Too tired not to stare with the truth glowing back in his eyes. Even _smiling_ authentically hurts right now, too much confusion, too many warring sensations converging in his chest like waves against a shore. This whole thing—it’s fucking _weird._ It’s like they're playing house: divvying up parenting tasks, planning the day, sharing domestic space like a fucking married couple when they’re _not._ When Bofur is the babysitter, and Bard signs the checks. He doesn’t know what to do with any of it because every time he starts to press at a weak, bruised point, the whole structure threatens to collapse. And he _really_ doesn’t want that. 

So he shuts his eyes and slows his breaths and does not stir when Bard sits on the edge of his bed to pull his jeans up and lace his shoes, the mattress dimpling beneath his weight. He doesn’t say a single thing when Bard reaches out and very, very gently brushes his fingers along Bofur’s arm from shoulder to elbow. He feigns sleep as the bedroom door clicks back into the frame and footsteps echo down the hall. He lies in silence and dreams even though he isn't sleeping. 

And although Bard is gone, making coffee or pouring cereal or warming the car up in the driveway or whatever else he does with his morning when Bofur is not there to do it for him, the room still _smells_ so much like him. His pillows and his sheets are still rich and spicy with the ghost of his shampoo, pine-tar condensation still clinging to the bathroom mirror. So once Bofur is sure he’s gone, he trades the pillow he’s using for the one Bard uses, so that he can bury his face in it and fill his lungs with the dirty, secret notes beneath. And then, he finally sleeps. 


	7. A Little Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends!!! another chapter, in which Halloween happens, alongside some other things. I made a playlist for this story called All Night Long Vibes on spotify, which features song songs from Bofur's heavy rotation!!! Enjoy <3 Also, it's come to my attention that this story is gonna be even longer than Living After Midnight :) leave it to me to crank out a novel about the world's most underrepresented pairing lol!!! I REALLY hope this story inspires some of you all to write some Bardfur too, I would be such a happy camper. 
> 
> Some thank you!!! 
> 
> -to Pranks/IncogneetO here on ao3, who has been drawing the CUTEST SEXIEST ART OF OUR BOYS!! Check out my gifts tab for the full collection, I'm obsessed 
> 
> -To my amazing beta Jen/HurdyGurdy who keeps editing everything for me despite the massive amount of work she has and also the fact she's not even in the fandom. I appreciate everything you do!!!
> 
> -To DefinitelyNotPie, who offered to give me a set of Hobbit-eyes for this chapter, and read over it for me. Thank you so much!!
> 
> I am so grateful to everyone who continues to read this fic <333 more coming soon!!!

Time passes, and most often, it feels too good to be fucking true. 

First off, Bofur gets to do all sorts of weird suburban crap he’s never gotten to do before, like attend Bain’s AYSO soccer games and cheer from the sidelines with Bard and cut up little orange slices for halftime. He gets to take Sigrid to a book fair and sit with her for a good hour helping her narrow down her massive selection into five she can buy with her allowance. He gets to chaperone a pizza and bowling birthday party Tilda and her whole class are invited to one Saturday and impress all the moms with how good he is at Ms. Pacman, which they happen to have at the bowling alley arcade. 

Best of all, though, he gets to take all three kids Halloween costume shopping at one of those awesome, dorky, seasonal stores, then take them trick-or-treating while the House of Durin attends Gilman’s annual Halloweekend horror metal lineup without him. He _pretends_ to be bummed about it, but secretly he loves snacking on candy and walking through Piedmont with Bard in their very shitty, slapdash, last-minute wolfman and vampire costumes. He _especially_ loves watching Bard eat pull-apart Twizzlers, his arms looking impossibly sexy and toned in his ripped-up sleeveless flannel. “You look like Wolverine,” Bofur tells him as they stand on the sidewalk, waiting for the kids to trundle back from the house they’re currently at. “A less buff, more middle-aged Wolverine.” He’s lisping because he’s wearing those stupid plastic fangs, so he spits them out into his palm and shakes his head. “Ugh, I hate these things.” 

“Tilda is going to yell at you if she catches you fangless,” Bard reminds him, pulling another waxy red string off his Twizzler and offering it to Bofur. “Here. To give you an excuse for your transgressions, Count Dracula.” Then he grins, face handsome and shadowed in the moonlight. 

Bofur eats it even though he hates fruity candy. 

That night, they sit on the living room floor with the kids and divide their spoils, facilitating fair trades and making absolutely sure that there’s nothing weird or unwrapped or potentially dangerous amid the heaps of Hersheys and Tootsie Rolls and Starburst. It’s the most fun Bofur has had on Halloween in ten years, probably, which is sad because it’s definitely his favorite holiday. The House of Durin group chat (aptly named SONS OF DURIN!!!! with three hammer emojis) is blowing up from Gilman, and everyone is sending him pictures and videos, but he just—doesn’t even _care_. He’s not even wishing Goblin Cleaver was playing, even though it’s been his long-time dream to play a Goblin Cleaver show on Halloween. But this—it’s perfect, somehow. It reminds him of his own childhood, the way he and Bombur would blast _Keeper of the Seven Keys_ while they emptied their pillowcases on their bedroom floor with the green shag carpeting and gorge themselves on Snickers until they threw up. The world smells like candles burning inside pumpkins and the smoke from fog machines, and there’s something undeniably _spooky_ and nostalgic about it all. Bofur realizes that maybe this is part of the reason why people have kids: to feel the way they felt themselves when they were young, to witness the ghost of their own innocence and half-remembered joy on rewind like an old VHS. Weirdly, he likes it. He likes seeing Bain and Tilda and Sigrid laugh and toss candy wrappers at each other and fight over the single king-sized Three Musketeers bar in their treasure hoard. He likes subtly leaning against Bard on the couch and feeling the warmth of his body pressed up against his thigh, his arm stretched along the cushions behind him, a breath away from touching. It’s not _his_ life, but trying it on, even just for a moment, feels so fucking good that it’s hard to remember, sometimes. 

After the kids crash from their sugar high and Bard tucks them in, he meets Bofur in bed. 

This is something else they’ve been doing more. Making a fake sleep set up on the couch so the kids don’t suspect anything, then sharing Bard’s bed. After the first couple of times, Bofur’s anxiety plateaus, and he gets much better at actually _sleeping_ with Bard instead of just laying there under his arm, hyperfocused on all the places they’re touching. And Bard wasn’t exaggerating—it’s so _nice_ to sleep with someone else. To feel the heat of their body, the comfort of their breath. Bofur knows he shouldn’t get used to this, but he also craves it all the time now, and he’s never been particularly good at ignoring his cravings. Plus, Bard makes it so _goddamned easy._ He clears out a drawer in his dresser so that Bofur can bring over some clothes, and he buys Bofur his own toothbrush that he keeps in his bathroom, right beside his own, as if they are a matched set. 

He never acts like Bofur’s company is an imposition, which is possibly because he always gets a very enthusiastic blowjob out of the arrangement. He also gets to enthusiastically blow Bofur, which is apparently something he wants to do. Bofur hasn’t quite come to terms with that part of this yet—that his distracting, pathological, bone-deep desire to gag himself drooling on Bard’s cock as often is humanly possible is not only welcome but _returned._ He has to fight the urge to say _you don’t have to, it’s fine_ every single time because it is _such_ a reflex to silence or ignore his own needs in favor of other people’s that he will actually _forget_ or misread how badly Bard wants to suck his cock, too. It’s weird. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t feel like it's an objective trade off when Bard is _Bard_ , and Bofur is the same struggling musician loser who got fired from a record store job three months ago. 

Not that he’s _complaining._ He's not. He’s just _also_ waiting for the match to burn out and the very good, currently _routine_ sex to be replaced with a twist of smoke and the smell of sulfur. To go back to sleeping alone, again. 

Already, though, the nights he spends at the House of Durin have begun to feel lonely. Instead of knocking out easily around 1 am after jamming with Bombur, he goes to bed early and smokes, lying there stoned and sweating in his newly clean sheets, watching gay porn for what he tells himself are researched-based, scientific reasons. Because if he's ever gonna fuck Bard, he has to have some sort of idea where to _start._

At first, he thinks it’s weird and gross because he’s just looking at the popular, recommended videos, which all feature buff guys with huge dicks and waxed asses. Like all professional porn, it feels fake and contrived and unhelpful and not at all representative of Bofur’s actual experiences, so it’s not until he does a little digging and discovers amateur videos does he find anything useful or even _watchable._

In fact, a lot of it is not _just_ informative but actually sort of hot. The guys themselves aren’t hot—they’re just guys. They’re not airbrushed or fit, they’re regular dudes with regular-sized junk, and some are scrawny, and some have potbellies or scar tissue or graying hair and wrinkles, but it never _matters_ because they’re just _into_ each other in this observable way. And that, in and of itself, is hot. And relatable. Watching these videos of middle-aged guys so stoked to fuck each other’s white, hairy, utterly mediocre asses makes him feel better. Makes him seriously appreciate that he doesn't really have to _perform_ anything, he can just be the way he is and trust that Bard, for whatever fucking reason, actually likes it. 

The whole anal sex bit is still fairly daunting, though. Most videos start after the preparation has already happened, so the guy’s ass is shiny and wet and easy to push into, but Bofur doesn't exactly know how it _got_ that way. He has a general idea about lube and about not just shoving right in, but he’d really appreciate more videos that focus on the mechanics. Regardless, it makes him hard, thinking about doing that to Bard. Not just fucking him but _touching_ him, getting him ready, feeling the clench of heat around his fingers. _Fuck._ He touches his cock slow and lazy with lotion for hours while he watches videos, keeping himself on the edge until he can’t take it anymore, and then, when he _does_ finish, it’s always with his eyes shut tight, Bard flickering upon the screen of his mind's eye: his flushed face, his gasping mouth, his pretty cock bobbing in time with Bofur’s thrusts. It does him in every time—just the _thought_ of it. The thought of being _inside_ Bard, punching moans out of him, licking them up from the panting wound of his mouth. 

Whenever he finishes, though, he feels fucking disgusting. Not just because there’s fat old dudes vigorously boinking on his computer, but also because he thinks it’s a pretty fucked up thing to do, to masturbate to a real person. Especially if that person is your casual fuck-buddy slash employer and definitely not your boyfriend by any, even very generous, stretch of the imagination. 

Most nights, he grimaces, shuts his laptop, cleans up, and packs another bowl so that he can self-deprecatingly smoke himself to sleep. But other nights, he never gets there. He just lies awake, staring at his guitars, replaying various things in his head until they blend together nonsensically into a half-dream punctuated with Bard’s smile, Bard’s hands. He never quite sleeps on these nights, but he will jerk out of half-dreams, thinking he’s in a warm California king in South Berkeley, disappointed to settle back down into his creaky twin on Frat Row, shivering as he pulls his comforter more tightly around his body, the bastard pantomime of an embrace. 

—-

Without warning, the first week of November sneaks up and bites Bofur in the ass. The temperature drops rapidly, and it’s wet and foggy every morning, so he has to make sure the kids wear jackets and galoshes to school just in case the sun never comes out and it drizzles all day. Tilda and Bain are terrors about it, stuck in that place of missing summer and already anticipating Christmas now that Halloween is over, bored with the time in between. Sigrid, on the other hand, has a November birthday and loves rainy weather and has a forest-green trench coat she’s very excited to be able to wear again. It makes her the most tolerable kid of the bunch for the time being, which is nice because Bofur does not enjoy worrying that she secretly (or not so secretly) hates him. In addition to the coat, her other current obsession is braiding two thin plaits to frame her face and then pinning them behind her head “like an elf.” She’s even started letting Bofur help her with them to make sure they’re even, which is huge. He’s pretty sure she would have kicked him in the shin a few months ago if he mentioned her shoe was untied, so. Even if it’s minor, this development counts as progress in his book.

One wet stormy evening when dinner is in the slow-cooker already and there’s time to kill before Bard comes home, Bofur puts _Labyrinth_ on for the kids because it’s his favorite rainy-day movie. However, they’re about an hour into it. and he’s already full of regret. He forgot how objectively scary it is as well as how enormous David Bowie’s package is in those tights. It’s too late to reconsider, though, because Bain is super into it, and Tilda has finally settled down after an afternoon of high-pitched screeching. He’s dug his grave, and now it’s time to lie in it. Bain is sitting on the floor beside him in the valley between the couch and the coffee table, and the girls are on the couch while Sigrid plaits, unties, and re-plaits her hair in an attempt to teach Tilda how to braid. 

“I can’t see it when it’s on your _face_ ,” Tilda complains, grabbing at a fistful of Sigrid’s loose blonde waves and tugging. 

Sigrid bats her away. “You didn't get it when I braided _your_ hair, either. Just watch.” 

“I am watching!” 

“Well then you’re stupid,” Sigrid snaps, sticking her tongue out. 

“Hey!” Bofur says, turning around to glare at her. “No name calling, you know better than that missy.” 

Tilda stares at him, eyes narrowed. “Use Bofur!” she says, grabbing the flap of his hat and yanking it off so his fine brown hair lifts and clings to it with static. “It’s long enough to braid.” 

Sigrid snorts, shaking her head. “Ew. I’m not gonna braid Bofur’s hair, he’d hate that.”

“What?! Why? Because I’m a guy? I happen to be _very_ comfortable with my masculinity,” he argues, finger-combing his hair and arranging it around his shoulders. It’s actually clean today since he showered last night, and he’s tired of hearing the girls bicker, so whatever it takes to quiet them down, he’s game for. “I love a good salon session. Have at me.” 

Tilda cackles, clearly thinking this is fabulous. “See! He’ll let us.” 

With fake reluctance, Sigrid rolls her eyes, hefts herself up, and starts roughly dividing his hair into chunks. “Ow,” he says. “Terrific bedside manner,” he tells her, wincing. “You have a real future as a cosmetician.” 

She laughs and pokes him in the shoulder punishingly. “You’re a baby.” 

“Ow. Yes. Maybe.” 

“Tilda, get a comb,” Sigrid orders, and Tilda scampers off and comes back with not only a comb but a hand-mirror, a fistful of butterfly clips and barrettes, and some elastics. She is positively _cackling_ with laughter,so Bofur knows he’s in for a good time. Sure enough, a disturbing David Bowie number and some terrifying puppets later, Bofur has an entire head full of braids, half of them narrow and neat by Sigrid, and the other half inexpert but increasingly less tangled by Tilda. They’re all all topped off with something plastic, and they all click together when he moves his head. “Beautiful,” Sigrid announces, handing Bofur the mirror. Tilda cracks up, wheezing on the couch so loudly that Bain turns the movie up. 

“Hmm. I look like Coolio, but less cool,” Bofur says, turning his head to and fro to admire himself. “Tilda, you’re really killin’ the braiding game though, good job.” 

Just then, the door clicks open, and Bard shoulders in, still shaking a drippy umbrella out behind him on the porch. “Oof!” he says as Tilda races over and vaults into his arms. “You’re getting too heavy for that.” 

“Da, look what we did to Bofur,” she giggles, pointing. “We made him beautiful.” 

Bard looks over at him, and their eyes lock, sending a lick of sensation into Bofur’s gut as he stares up from where he’s still sitting on the floor. He fully forgets his hair is in a million tiny braids and barrettes for a moment because Bard’s pupils are so dark, his smile so warm, and those two facts drown out every other reality. “Gorgeous,” Bard says, setting Tilda down before kicking his shoes off at the door, crinkles framing his eyes, soft and handsome and sweet. “Am I next?” 

“Yes!” Tilda exclaims, clapping and grabbing her comb as she pirouettes back into the living room and hops up onto the couch. 

“What! I thought I was next,” Bain pouts, finally tearing his gaze away from the movie for the first time since it started. 

“Your hair’s not long enough for braids,” Sigrid tells him. 

“We could do a bunch of little clips and ponytails,” Bofur suggests, reaching out and making a loose, gentle fist in Bain’s somewhat overgrown mop of hair. “S’long enough for that.” 

“Okay, then, Bain first, then me,” Bard says, sidestepping in toward the couch before he collapses onto it directly behind Bofur, his knees bracketing him. Bofur’s heart stops because they usually don't touch in front of the kids, save for the occasional brush of their shoulders together, or Bard gently touching his back on his way out the door, brief and fleeting. This feels entirely different. Bard is settling _in_ behind him, spreading out and relaxing with Bofur sitting between his fucking _legs._ It’s shocking. It’s maddening. He’s entirely unprepared to deal with it. 

The kids don’t notice. They’re too busy arguing about what to do with Bain’s hair, Sigrid determined to put a tiny French braid along the side, Tilda hindering this careful and painstaking process by gleefully jamming barrettes into whatever she can reach. They’re not looking over at him and Bard at all, so Bofur forces himself to loosen up a little, melting into the couch behind him, letting his arms press into the insides of Bard’s calves. “How was work?” he asks casually as his knuckles brush against the bone of Bard’s ankle, under the hem of his jeans. 

Bard hums lightly and shifts into the touch. It makes Bofur’s heart stutter and trip before it picks up again, speeding. “It was alright. Alfrid caught me bagging up some bruised veggies from the dumpster and gave me a hard time, but he knows there’s nothing he can do about it if an employee takes it home. Can you believe there’s a law that prevents us, as a company, from giving the food we throw out to homeless people? Drives me crazy. So I have to pretend to want it for myself.” 

Bofur’s heart clenches. “You’re a good man, you know that?” 

Bard chokes out a humorless laugh, pressing his leg into Bofur’s shoulder, jostling him gently. “I try.” 

Bored with Bain’s hair and Sigrid’s increasingly micromanaging attempts at a French braid, Tilda gives up and bounces over to Bard. “Do you want me to teach _you_ how to braid, Da?” 

“Sure,” he says, patting her back and yawning. “I never did get the hang of it.” 

She immediately starts yanking all the clips and barrettes out of Bofur’s hair, tiny fingers untangling all the braids and fluffing the strands up again so it’s a blank slate. Bofur then, quite suddenly, realizes she’s going to use his _hair_ to demonstrate. That Bard will be touching his hair. He rights himself and tenses, staring very decidedly at the screen where David Bowie is chasing Jennifer Connelly through a series of mysterious moving staircases, eyes fixed there until they water. “Okay, so you take a chunk and split it into three pieces,” Tilda announces, taking a very long time to complete this task, grabby hands snagging in Bofur’s hair as he grimaces, letting his head be tugged fiercely in her direction. 

“Make sure they’re even,” Sigrid shoots over from the other side of the couch. 

“Three _even_ pieces,” Tilda snaps. “I already said that.” 

Bard’s fingers are very warm and gentle compared to Tilda’s, sifting gently through Bofur’s hair and nudging up against his scalp, making him shiver. “Okay…like this?” he asks. “Jesus, Tilda, gentle. You’re tugging him like he’s a horse.” 

Bain snorts from the floor, where he is hunkered down beneath Sigrid’s iron fists. “A horse,” he repeats.

“Sit still!” Sigrid demands, and he shuts right back up again. 

Bofur would normally scold Sigrid for snapping like that, but he can’t breathe, let alone speak right now, so he lets it go. Bard is sectioning out his hair with delicate prudence, hardly touching him, but _still,_ it’s so careful so tender, and so—honest. Right out here in the living room, like touching is not a secret. Bofur thought that up until this point, whatever is happening between them is entirely _separate_ from the way he’s twining himself deeper into Bard’s life, tangled into his family inextricably, like a foxtail working its way into the flesh. He’s felt like the sex and the domesticity were _two_ different things. One their dirty little secret, the other just a part of Bofur’s _job,_ and _he_ was weird for connecting them, for feeling moved and confused and elated every time Bard invited him to stay for dinner or helped him with the dishes. But now, all his wires are crossed, and he doesn’t know what to _do_ with it, how to feel. So he just sits there in silence as Bard carefully combs through his hair and braids a neat plait, despite Tilda’s less than clear instructions. In fact, Bofur suspects Bard knew full well how to braid hair all along and was just looking for an excuse to fluster him for some reason. Or maybe he has no ulterior motives or thoughts or intentions _at all,_ and Bofur is reading entirely too much into every single thing he does, just like _always._

“Your neck is so tight,” Bard mumbles as he winds a little hair elastic around the braid he just finished, smoothing his fingers over it before trailing them down to the top-most knob of Bofur’s spine just under the collar of his shirt. “I can see the tendons sticking out.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s what I get from hauling this full size sack of potatoes around every time she demands it because I'm a sucker,” he says, nodding toward Tilda, who beams. 

“See? You’re too heavy to be carried,” Bard says, elbowing her gently. He’s cupping Bofur’s neck with both his palms now, the heavy heat of them so fucking delicious and soothing that Bofur’s eyes shutter closed, his body growing still, breath becoming shallow. He doesn’t want to do anything that might make Bard stop or think better of this. He wants to continue on, living in this universe where he can so easily pretend he belongs here: between Bard’s knees, making him dinner after a long day’s work, pulse thrumming beneath the tender, insistent dig of his thumb. “That feel okay? Does it hurt?” Bard asks, rubbing up and down a very taut cord in his neck. 

“Yeah. S’good though,” Bofur mumbles, gritting his teeth, melting into Bard’s touch. It’s not sexual, not at all, which makes it _worse._ It’s just sweet. He doesn't know what to do with pure sweetness, it sits on him foreign, like someone else’s clothes. Someone else’s life. 

Tilda finishes her braid up, clips it with a barrette, and gets up on her knees to survey her work. “He has pigtails now.” 

“Very pretty pigtails,” Bard says, smoothing a hand down each of them, pulling them forward onto Bofur’s shoulders to expose the whole of the back of his neck so that he can knead into it. Casually, publicly, like this is a thing they just _do_ and not the end of the world as he knows it. Bofur wants so _badly_ to see his eyes, to look into them and figure out what the fuck is going on, but he also doesn’t want to dislodge the pressure of his palms, so he stays put. 

Shifting her attention to Bard, Tilda plunges her grabby little fingers through the part of his hair that’s not up in a half-bun and starts stubbornly braiding. “Da and Bofur sort of have the same hair,” she declares, as if she is noticing the objective similarity for the first time. 

“Psh, we don’t,” Bofur argues. He would _know_ , he’s spent a lot of time with his hands shoved wrist deep into Bard’s hair. It’s much thicker than his own, thicker and coarser and textured. It’s really quite wonderful hair, and he loves tangling his fingers into the mess of it and tugging, or lifting it up off Bard’s neck to study the line of his jaw. 

“Yes you do!” Tilda shoots back. “Long and brown.” 

“Da is grayer,” Sigrid pipes up, still determined to finish her masterpiece. Bain has stopped the movie mid-credits to rewind and catch up on what he missed, so now he’s staring slack-jawed at David Bowie again. “No offense.” 

“A little grayer, maybe. But also lush and wavy like a prince,” Bofur explains. “Your Da has luscious royal locks. Mine is like a cartoon character. I look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.” 

Bain cracks up, even though he is ten years old and probably has no fucking idea who Shaggy is. 

Bard laughs, too, squeezing Bofur’s neck in a firm grip before letting go and smoothing his palm down his shoulder instead, touch gentle, searching, casual—intimate. Everything about this is so intimate. If they were together, it would make sense, but they’re _not,_ so it _doesn’t_. Everything is just making Bofur dizzy, reeling there on the floor, heart in his throat. “You don’t look like Shaggy. You look like a rock and roller. Because you are,” Bard tells him before reaching up and flicking the hoop through Bofur’s left ear, as if to demonstrate. 

“Ta dah!” Sigrid suddenly says, flopping back onto the couch and holding her arms up to fist-pump in triumph. “Two French braids. Like an elf.” 

Sure enough, she has somehow managed to give her preferred hairstyle to Bain, though his hair is substantially shorter, and as a result, the braids are thick and wide and a little messy. Everyone is still very impressed, and the excitement shatters the tension, Bard standing to get his phone and take some pictures of her fabulous creation, releasing Bofur from between his knees at long last.

Bofur puts his hat on over his pigtails, since it’s the only remaining comfort he has to cling to, save for the closing credits song of _Labyrinth_ , which is now playing in the background. He stands, one of his legs fully asleep, prickling with pins and needles as he hops on one foot to the kitchen to check on the slow-cooker. 

There, with his hands braced on the counter and his chest tight with a hundred unnamed feelings, he lays his own hand on the back of his neck to feel the ghost of where Bard touched him, as if he could fit his palm into an imprint he left. 

—-

The rain is still coming down in torrents once the kids are in bed, and Bofur doesn't want to drive home in it any more than he wants to leave in the first place, so he stays. He fills all the dishes with hot soapy water to soak in the sink and wipes down the stove, even though he didn’t _use_ it tonight, and it's perfectly clean. Bard eventually wanders to the kitchen after tucking in the kids, face lined with exhaustion and a single, messy Tilda-braid still half-formed in his hair. “Fashion,” Bofur says, pointing, slapping on a grin because it’s a hundred times easier than asking _what in the fuck are we?_

Bard returns the smile before he backs Bofur into the stove, caging him in between his arms and affixing his mouth to his throat, kissing him there before peeling back to study the wet spot he left shining on his skin with tired, dark eyes. Bofur’s heart is thundering, and Bard must be able to _hear_ it, must be able to count the tiny tremors making his body tremble. But instead of saying something about it, he just reaches up and tugs the elastic out of one of Bofur’s pigtails, undoing the braid with his fingers, gaze fixed and weary, mouth a quiet flat line. “They did a number on you today, didn't they?” he says, the corner of his lips quirking up. 

“No more than usual,” Bofur confesses. “I don’t mind.” 

“I have to ask you about something,” Bard says then, gaze shifting to the other pigtail, which he also undoes, the motion of his hand deft and quick, his eyes never flicking up to hold Bofur’s so he is left to wonder about the storm raging therein, only capable of catching glimpses of it in the periphery. 

“Oh?” he answers after a thick swallow. 

“Mmhm,” Bard says, smoothing Bofur’s hair down on either side of his neck before pulling away, hands falling to his sides before he crosses them over his chest in a defensive twist. “I had lunch with Dwalin today, and he asked me about you.” 

It hits Bofur like a bucket of ice water to his face. “He did? What did he ask? What did you _say_?” he blurts. 

Bard’s face remains unreadable. “He asked about the girl he thinks you’re seeing,” he says then, raising an eyebrow. “Tried to drill me for information about her. I, of course, said I had no idea what he was talking about.” 

Bofur almost fucking chokes on his own spit. _The milf,_ he realizes. Of course this information would reach Dwalin. He told Gloin and Bombur and Dori, and they told Thorin and Bilbo, there was _no way_ the whole house wouldn’t be filled in within a matter of days. He just fucking _forgot_ Bard worked with Dwalin, or something. “Fuck,” he groans, rubbing his face with his hand, hiding his eyes so he doesn't have to burn up in the studious flint of Bard’s gaze. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“What I need to know,” Bard says then, turning to the sink to start scrubbing, running the water so his voice is hard to hear above the rush of it, “is if there’s actually a girl, or if you were talking about—”

“Oh god, no! No. There’s not a girl,” Bofur explains, striding to the sink and grabbing a drying rag because what he _really_ wants to do is grab Bard, but he’s not sure that’s allowed right now. His heart is in his throat, and his throat is closing up tight, and all of that together makes him feel like he's dying, like he can’t breathe, like his blood is stopping short in his veins. “I just didn’t want to get an earful from my roommates about this. They’re—well. You’ve met Dwalin. They’re a lot, you know. And they have good intentions but I’d never fucking hear the end of it and m’just not ready to have my private life plastered all over our communal bulletin board, so to speak,” he explains. 

Bard is quiet, water and soap glistening in the hair on his forearms as he rinses dishes, setting them into the drying rack instead of handing them to Bofur and his rag. Bofur just stands there wringing it helplessly instead, chewing the inside of his cheek until Bard finishes up, and shuts the water off. “Okay,” he says. “That’s what I thought.” 

And then he turns to Bofur and kisses him deep and rough and maybe even _possessive,_ if Bofur allows himself to read anything into the pressure, Bard’s fierce grip in his clothes, the tension in his soap-slick forearms as he rubs his palms up them after dropping the rag, thumbing into drawn-tight skin. _Yours, only yours, all yours if you want it, swear to god,_ he thinks in a stupid, reckless, self-destructive loop, letting Bard touch him and maul over his body with greedy palms. When he pulls back, Bard’s eyes are shut, and he's smiling, lashes two dark crescent moons against his cheeks, his forehead pressed to Bofur’s hat. “So,” he murmurs, thumbing over his nipple through his threadbare Manowar shirt. “You think I’m a dilf?” 

“ _What?!_ Did Dwalin say that?” Bofur asks miserably, body arching off the counter to press flush into Bard. “I’m seriously so, _genuinely_ , from the bottom of my heart, sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” Bard says with a smile, nipping at Bofur’s lower lip. “He _did_ say that, though. He said the talk of the house was Bofur’s milf girlfriend. In fact if he _hadn’t_ used that particular phrase I probably would have been more jealous about it,” he admits, nuzzling into Bofur’s facial hair, flicking his tongue over the corner of his mouth before kissing him deep. Bofur sways as he’s kissed, positively drunk on the fact that Bard was _jealous_ at all. Jealous of the idea of him having someone else. “But you were talking about me, weren't you?” he asks, voice tattered as it begs, hands grabbing, digging, clutching. 

“Of course, and of-fucking-course you’re a dilf, obviously, look at you,” Bofur murmurs between kisses, his head spinning, his stomach twisting into its usual mess of knots, his caution lost to the raw, desperate drag of Bard’s mouth. “Or maybe…dicf? Is that a thing? Dad I’m currently fucking?” 

Bard laughs helplessly against Bofur’s lips, curling his dish-wet arms around his lower back and pulling him close, licking him apart until they’re both gasping and grinding, and everything save for the fire-hot friction between their bodies is forgotten. Bard does not let Bofur up for a long time, and that’s perfectly fine by him. As long as he doesn’t have to categorize. As long as he doesn’t have to think. As long as the only thing he has to do is be kissed, and touched, and possessed. 

He comes there, eventually, beneath the spill of the kitchen light and Bard’s rough-sweet fist. With the counter digging into the small of his back, with his own mouth gasping into the thud of Bard’s pulse like it belongs there, like all his breaths should be pressed to warm skin. _Yours, yours only, all yours if you want it, swear to god,_ he thinks, as Bard smears his come up into the hair of his stomach, sucking his tongue. _Yours._ And it’s a stupid thing to think, he knows it, but that does not stop him from wearing the word on his heart like a brand, burnt into his skin until it scars. 


	8. Cold Feet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LONGEST CHAPTER YET, lots of sexiness, lots of feelings, buckle up everyone if you thought it was juicy before its even juicier nowwwww. Love u all see u on the other side <3

As it turns out, Bofur cannot lie about the milf in question much longer. 

The facade comes crumbling down one rare weekday off. Bofur is sleeping in because every time he wakes up, he hates that he’s alone and in his own stupid bed. He's drowsy and over-warm and in the middle of a weird, half-waking dream where he’s trying to figure out how to start up a ride-on lawnmower so that he can weed whack the Oakland A’s stadium when there’s a knock on his door. At first, he twists it into the fiber of his dream. That’s his boss, not _Bard,_ unfortunately, but some nameless, faceless dream-boss who may or may not play baseball, rapping on the cracked seat of the mower with his knuckles impatiently. But then the knocking persists, and Bofur sits bolt upright in bed, blinking sleep from his eyes, realizing that someone is honest-to-god outside his room. “Hold up!” he groans, dragging himself out of bed and lazily tugging on a pair of dirty boxers so he doesn't answer the door naked. 

“Oh my goodness! You're actually home,” Bilbo exclaims, reeling back from the door as Bofur throws it open. 

“I am,” he confirms, rubbing his face with the back of his hand. “What time is it?” 

“Hm, a little after noon. Almost one, actually,” Bilbo says upon sliding his phone out of his pocket to check. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“Oh, s’fine, for the better,” Bofur says, yawning. “I was fit to sleep till dinner.” 

“I’m about to head to Berkeley Bowl for the weekly groceries,” Bilbo announces. “Oin’s been letting me use his car, but I still always check to see if you’re around. I miss our shopping adventures. It’s not so fun stealing cacao nibs from the bulk section alone,” he laments, crossing his arms and standing in that funny, flat-footed, well-braced way of his. Bofur smiles. 

“I miss them, too,” he admits. “If you give me a minute to shower and change I’m down to jack some cacao nibs from Ye Olde Berkeley Bowl for old time’s sake.” 

“Absolutely!” Bilbo says brightly. “I’ll be downstairs.” 

And so, Bofur has a reason beyond work to actually make himself presentable. He washes his hair and dresses in clean clothes, still not totally used to _having_ clean clothes to wear in the first place. It’s weird, feeling like a real-life adult, doing adult things in an adult order without feeling like he’s playing a part. It’s been _weeks_ now that he’s kept up having a tidy room and doing regular laundry. It feels like his longest stint ever, if he’s honest. It’s weird. It’s—it’s good. He tries not to think about the fact that it’s the direct result of having something acutely wonderful to live for, right now. 

It’s a cloudy day, but once they’re driving down Warring in familiar campus traffic, Bofur’s shitty speakers rattling out Stratovarius’s _Visions_ because that album pretty much never leaves his car stereo, it feels like summer all over again. Like nothing has changed, and Bilbo is still his close friend and not Thorin’s boyfriend, and there aren't any weird secrets between them. 

Of course, it’s not summer, and Bilbo _is_ Thorin’s boyfriend, and they’re not half as close as they once were. But most troubling of all, there’s a terrible, unspoken lie hiding in the shadows, and the longer Bofur drives, staring at the road and chewing the inside of his cheek until it tastes metallic, the heavier it weighs on him. Bilbo is currently babbling on about some class he’s taking on books, but not just the words _on books_ like a regular English class but the _material_ of books, the binding and the typeface and the circumstances under which they were originally published, which is apparently very fascinating. He keeps saying that word, _fascinating_. And Bofur really has no idea what he’s talking about, because he’s not listening that well, because he’s just feeling guiltier and guiltier and more and more distracted. 

“Bilbo,” he says then, as he flicks his blinker on and makes a nervous, swerving turn onto Dwight. “I have to tell you something.” 

Bilbo shuts up very suddenly, mouth snapping closed as he stares at Bofur across the divide between the driver and passenger side with wide eyes, blinking. “Oh god,” he says. Bofur swallows nervously, feeling like he’s going to fall apart if Bilbo keeps looking at him this way, shocked and suspicious. “Is everything alright? I _thought_ you were awfully quiet today.” 

“Everything is fine,” Bofur assures him, inhaling shakily, eyes still fixed on the road. He can feel Bilbo looking at him, studying him like he’s trying to pick him apart. He tongues at the new raw patch in his mouth, wondering how the fuck you just _tell_ your gay friend that you’re having regular gay sex with your employer who happens to be a hot single dad without it coming across as a joke. “I mean—it’s not _all right,_ actually, it’s fucking weird and confusing but m’like. I’m okay. I just. I want to tell you the truth.” 

“Bofur,” Bilbo says, a little desperately. “You’re scaring me, please just say it.” 

“There’s no milf,” he starts with, taking a long, shuddering breath and blowing it out in a huff. “The kids I babysit? I’m fucking their dad.” 

It sits in the air for a moment before Bilbo spits out a shrill, frantic laugh followed by “ _What?”_

Bofur rolls up to a red light, for which he is grateful because he can brake and actually look at Bilbo with wide, pleading eyes. “I said what I said.” 

“You are?! What— _why_ didn’t you just tell me? Why did you invent some woman to—oh my _god,”_ he sputters, putting his head in his hands and trembling with wheezy laughter for a moment. “What the _fuck,_ Bofur. Let me tell you, for all the potentially scandalous scenarios I imagined, this simply was not one of them.”

“I didn't tell you because we hardly talk anymore!” he accuses, gunning the car perhaps a little too hard as the light changes. “And I invented a woman because, I dunno, I’m gonna be forty in December and I’m _having a goddamned gay crisis_ and it’s embarrassing and I don’t know how to talk about it.”

 _“_ Oh my god,” Bilbo says again, sitting back up and wiping his eyes, staring up at the roof of the car with a stricken gaze. “Well, how is it? Do you like it? Does it _have_ to be a crisis?” 

Bofur frowns. He’s not sure what he was expecting in terms of a response, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t _that._ He’s so caught off guard that he’s not sure how to answer, really, because the truth is too embarrassing, too raw: _it’s amazing and I love it and that, Bilbo Baggins, is why it’s a fucking crisis. “_ The sex is stupidly good,” he settles on. “So, fist bump on that or whatever.” It makes Bilbo laugh, which is good. This whole talk will be better if they’re laughing. Bofur clutches the steering wheel in a sweaty grip with one hand and reaches for Bilbo with the other, shaking his fist in the air expectantly while Bilbo stares at it because he’s English and has probably never fist-bumped in his entire life. “C’mon, I’m serious! Solidarity. That dick-sucking stuff is surprisingly ace.” 

Bilbo reluctantly complies. “You’re not being serious,” he says as he curls his fingers around Bofur’s fist and squeezes it gently instead. “Remember, I _know_ you. You've drunk-cried on me about being single. You can’t pretend this is just a joke, to me.” 

That makes Bofur’s eyes sting a little. He sniffs, swallowing thickly. “Fine,” he says, allowing himself to soften and cave. “I—I don’t really know what happened. It started because I offered him a blowjob, and now I, like. Ugh. It’s such a mess. I want to be around him all the time. I think about him when I go to bed, and then like, first thing when I wake up. It’s disgraceful. I’m a wreck.” 

“Wait, back up,” Bilbo says. “Why did you offer him a blowjob in the first place?!” 

“Because!” Bofur spits out, heart lurching up from his chest to his throat, choking him. “Because he’s really nice and fucking attractive and because—because I wanted to blow him. I don’t know. I told you, it’s a mess.” 

“Oh, Bofur,” Bilbo says very sympathetically, reaching over and petting his shoulder in a too-quick, semi-nauseating but still very sweet tattoo. “You like him.” 

“Yeah,” he eventually concedes, sighing. “I guess I do.” 

He lets that admission rest on his tongue silently for a while, feeling the tension drain out of his body only to be replaced with a blood-deep, exhausted ache. “See,” he mumbles, rubbing his face on his inner arm while he tightens his fingers around the steering wheel, elbows locked. “This is why I like talking to you. You spell it out for me, tell it how it is. I missed that.” 

“I missed you being absolutely dense and totally brilliant at the same time, so, we’re even,” Bilbo says, shooting him a quick grin. “Also, I wanted to tell you, I’m genuinely sorry for what a shit friend I’ve been to you and everyone else since Thorin and I got together.” 

“It’s okay,” Bofur admits as he pulls into a spot in the hellish Berkeley Bowl parking lot. Getting a space here without driving around aimlessly or sitting in gridlocked traffic for twenty minutes is a miracle, so he decides to take it as a sign from above, the universe smiling down upon him for his honesty. He kills the engine, puts his seat back, and kicks his feet up on either side of the wheel. Then he stares at the ceiling. “To be fair, I was being a little bitch about it. I was jealous.” It’s the first time he’s said the word out loud, and it barbs in his throat at the same time it feels _right_. He _has_ been jealous. Jealous in too many ways to count. Bilbo patiently listens, following suit and reclining his own seat, propping his heels up on the dash. “Not of the being with Thorin and having hot gay sex all the time part, but like—we used hang out every day. We’d get stoned and go shopping or just chill, you know, and I got used to it. Having a friend like that. And then suddenly you started spending all your free time in Thorin’s bed. And then with him—all his projects besides Azog got sidelined and I never saw him, either. Like. Why would he want to practice or write Goblin Cleaver songs with me when he could just fuck you?” 

Bilbo shakes his head. “He misses your band. He misses all his bands. He tells me about it.” 

“I—I know he does, like, of course he does. We all miss music when real life gets too crazy, but mostly I think I just really missed _you_ guys, and—it made me even more lonely, seeing you both so happy.” He picks at a string on his ripped jeans, pursing his lips before they twist into a frown. “I know that’s really selfish.” 

“It’s not,” Bilbo says gently, hands clasped over this stomach as he gazes out the windshield at all the people and their carts, bustling back and forth. It feels nice, to be separate from it, lying here side by side, a world away from the rest of them all and their busy, mundane lives. “You know, Thorin offered to come live in London with me, when I was supposed to fly back in September. But I decided I wasn’t ready, and extended my study abroad plans, and you—you and the whole house—were part of the reason _why_. I didn’t want to leave you all behind just yet. So thank you for reminding me of that.” 

Bofur smiles at him. “You gonna make time to actually see me then?” 

“Look at me now!” Bilbo says, raising his eyebrows. “Sitting shotgun planning to ravage the bulk section, just like old times.” 

Bofur hefts himself up on his shoulder so he can reach across the divide and give Bilbo an awkward, one-armed hug. They cling to each other, and Bilbo pats his back for a moment before gently shoving Bofur off and dragging himself up. “Okay, enough sentimentality, _please_ tell me about your boyfriend, I’m absolutely _dying_ for intel,” Bilbo says, rubbing his palms together and grinning conspiratorially. “Do _not_ spare the filthy details.” 

“Ugh, he’s not my boyfriend,” Bofur groans, rolling back into the driver’s side and pulling his hat down over his face to hide his grimace, knees splaying wide. 

“Okay, fine. Do you _wish_ he was?” 

Just _hearing_ the question makes Bofur’s heart tighten like a fist. “I don’t know,” he lies. “I’ve never thought about having a boyfriend before, I—It’s not _for_ me or something. Boyfriends, girlfriends, people…permanence….intimacy or whatever you crazy kids call it. But the thing is, I don’t want to _stop_ what’s going on with him. I agonize about it every fucking day, thinking, _this is probably the last time, get ready to let go._ But instead of letting go, I just hold on tighter, it’s so _stupid._ Like. I finally started getting responses from a lot of the applications I sent out over the summer, but I don’t even want to follow up on them or schedule interviews because I just want to keep being Bard’s _manservant_. It’s bad. And embarrassing.” 

Bilbo stares at him for a moment, puzzled expression on his brow, eyes narrowed like he _knows_ something. It makes Bofur nervous. “Are you in love with him?” he finally says. 

_Yes!_ Bofur’s stupid heart cries out, and he _really_ does not like that, so he splays a hand over his chest, trying to still and silence.“I don’t know,” is what he actually manages to mumble, throat so tight it’s hard to properly suck in a breath. “I don’t—I don’t even know what that would look like, for me.” 

_“_ Okay, different approach,” Bilbo says, holding up his finger very authoritatively. He’s clearly having a wonderful time playing gay-sex therapist. “What’s he like?” 

Bofur thinks, and his chest aches, his mouth softening into a reflexive smile. “Tall, and like. Insanely fucking handsome, but—that doesn’t even matter. It’s more…who he is. Soft-spoken, caring dad, gives a shit about people, tries to make a difference where he works…he’s kind. And I also love the way he touches me. And how he smells.” 

“Bofur!! You are _absolutely_ in love with him, do you even fucking hear yourself?” Bilbo yelps, eyes glittering as he stares, evidently thrilled to have uncovered such a mortifying truth. 

Bofur’s ears ring, his face very suddenly very hot. He puts his foot down and resists, though, because that is what he’s best at when it comes to looking at himself long and hard in the mirror. “I do not! I didn’t even know I was actually, legitimately into guys until this! I can’t be _fucking in love_ with the first guy whose dick I’ve sucked, that’s pathetic,” he spits out before turning fiercely to the window, staring out of the dirty, grime-streaked glass for a minute, heart thundering because he knows, _he knows_ he’s lying, avoiding, _running._ He’s known it for a long time. But just because he refuses to say or think a certain word doesn’t change the way it feels in his chest. He thunks his head against the glass, shutting his eyes. “I’m in love with him,” he admits, shoving his tongue into the wound he’d made in his mouth. “Fuck.” 

Bofur expects a complacent _I knew it_ from Bilbo, but instead there’s just a gentle, warm hand on his arm, patting gingerly. “I’m sorry,” Bilbo murmurs. “I didn’t mean to push you, I—”

“No, no. It’s fine. It’s true. I _told_ you, this is why I like talking to you. You don’t let me delude myself with my own bullshit.” 

They’re quiet for a moment, Bilbo squeezing his elbow in odd intervals until he pulls away, cocking his head in pressing curiosity. “Well. _While_ we’re talking about all of this and you’re allowing me to be nosy…what does he look like? I’m totally dying for a mental picture of this mystery man.” 

“Here,” Bofur grumbles, getting his phone out and pulling up Bard’s Facebook, since the only pictures he has on his actual camera roll also have the kids in them, and he feels weird about that. He sort of _wishes_ he had a nice picture of just Bard, though, Bard smiling, Bard late at night when his eyes are most tired but the lines around them are the softest. “This is him,” he says after settling on a picture of Bard in his sunglasses standing on the Bay Bridge to start with, though he _knows_ Bilbo will swipe through every available shot. He hands him the phone, teeth grit in inexplicable anticipation. 

Bilbo stares. “Bofur,” he says as he scrolls madly, eyes wide, mouth open. “He’s fucking hot. What the hell are you doing? _This_ is the man you’re fucking?” 

“Yes?” Bofur mumbles, snatching his phone back and pocketing it defensively, even as Bilbo tries to grab it back. “Listen, I _know_ he’s way out of my league or whatever.” 

“No! It’s not that at all it’s just— _go get him!_ Lock this shit down, men like that do _not_ grow on trees, my god,” Bilbo says, sounding actually _stressed_ on Bofur’s behalf. “Is he gay? Does he want something serious? What does he want?” 

“No, he’s a widower, he had a wife, but he’s def like, done stuff with guys before. And I don’t know, we’ve never talked about it! He wants to get his dick sucked for free and someone to snuggle with at night, probably. I can’t lock _that_ down. It’s not serious, _I’m_ just serious because I’m also fucking stupid!” 

“Maybe you should just like—talk to him then!” Bilbo says incredulously as he throws his hands up in the air, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

“He’s _paying me,”_ Bofur reminds him, pressing the bottoms of his shoes to the windshield, making a face. “I’m not his boyfriend, this isn’t even like a casual dating thing I can decide to commit to…if he wanted to date me, he would have just _hired_ another nanny and just asked me out.” 

“Or, I don’t know, maybe he’s _also_ having an inconvenient gay crisis and doesn't know what he's doing either!” Bilbo offers, throwing his arms up again. “Sounds like you’re _both_ shooting in the dark and _perhaps_ if you had a nice chat about it, you could figure it out.” 

Bofur groans, yanking his hat down over his face, enmeshing himself in the comforting smell of his own dirty hair. It’s much easier than taking Bilbo’s probably very good advice. “Easy for you to say, you’re gay and in love and basically married already. At what, aren’t you like twenty-five? I hate you.” 

Bilbo barks out a laugh. “Trust me, Thorin and I would have had a much easier, smoother time getting together if we’d just _talked_ about our feelings,” he says then, snatching Bofur’s hat out of his hands so he can scowl at him. “Talk. Please. It’s lamentably underrated.” 

“I need cacao nibs to think,” Bofur declares as he steals his hat back, twisting it between his hands. Then he unlocks his door and clumsily kicks it open, his long legs spilling out onto the pavement messily. “I refuse to have another word of this conversation without a fistful of cacao nibs.” 

“Fair enough,” Bilbo sighs, hopping out of the passenger side, stretching. “Just so you know,” he says then, looking fondly at Bofur over the hood of the car after slamming his door behind him. “I am very glad to have you as my friend, and I appreciate you telling me the truth about the milf and allowing me to bully you through the finer parts of your gay crisis.” 

Bofur locks up his car and walks over to Bilbo so that he can put him in a quick headlock before squeezing him into a tight, crushing hug. “Cacao nibs,” he says. _I am very lucky to have you as my friend, too,_ is what he means. 

—-

During the entire grocery shopping trip, Bilbo pesters him for more information, and Bofur feigns reluctance, though in actuality, it sort of feels _good_ to tell the truth about Bard. To be openly excited about everything that’s happened, to blush, to share with someone who genuinely understands how _astounding_ it is to be touched by a man and to have the privilege of touching one back. It’s so fucking _weird_ to have that particular experience not just acknowledged but _celebrated._ Bilbo is thrilled to talk to him about it, to needle into his side and gleefully pry for details and cheer once he gets them. By the time they get back home, Bofur realizes how badly he’s _needed_ this. Someone in his corner rooting for him, telling him to throw himself into the scary bits of what he feels, even if there’s a good chance he might get burnt. 

On Bilbo’s very enthusiastic bordering on hysterical recommendation, he resolves to talk to Bard the next time they’re alone together. 

However, it ends up being much more of a challenge in practice. There’s just never really a _good time_ to ask the guy whose dick you’re sucking if he wants to be more than just guys who suck each other’s dicks. Especially when, in so many ways, they _already_ are more than that. 

Bofur makes himself sick with anxiety a few times over the course of the work week trying to gear himself up to broach the subject with Bard when he comes home, but by the time the kids are in bed and they’re sharing a drink out on the porch beneath the spread of the stars, it feels impossible to actually just _say_ it, even if he’s been rehearsing for hours. Bard politely asks him about his day and shares idle anecdotes about his own, but there’s nowhere in between the Whole Foods drama or retellings of the finer details of Tilda’s latest make-believe game to just _bring_ something like that up. Bofur doesn’t even know what to say, really. _Hey, I accidentally fell in love with you, is there any way you want to, like, make this a thing-thing instead of just a thing?_ feels too raw, too real, too _much._ And he doesn’t want to burden Bard, not after his long, shitty, stressful work days in the service industry. Especially since the likelihood of him feeling the same way and _wanting_ to make it a thing-thing seem abysmal. 

After they talk and drink a bit, they usually end up in bed, and _that_ is not the best time in the world to discuss such matters of import, either. Bofur loses his ability to _think_ coherent sentences let alone speak, and Bard has a tendency to get caught up in the moment and say things he most likely doesn't mean. They’re things Bofur obsesses over later nonetheless, though, things like _you feel so fucking good,_ and _I’ve been waiting for this all day,_ and worst of all, _after sex,_ when they’re just lying there in a sheen of sweat, Bofur’s jaw aching and his cock softening against his thigh, _please don’t go tonight,_ right up against the shell of his ear, Bard’s breath hot and the weight of his arm curled across his chest tight and possessive. 

And of course, of _fucking course,_ Bofur isn’t going anywhere. He never wants to go anywhere. He wants to stay right here, memorizing the cracks in the ceiling and the way they change in the gentle sluice of the ceiling fan, counting Bard’s breaths like this is a countdown, like these are the last moments of New Year’s Eve, like everything is terminal. _I’m not going anywhere, don’t you worry,_ he always promises. Bard, of course, has no idea how much he means it. That he’ll stay as long as he wants him. That he will stay holding onto him like the last grains of a fistful of sand held under a roaring tide. 

It’s a night like every night when they finally talk, and even then, Bofur isn’t the one who starts it. He’s just lying there in Bard’s rumpled bed trying to catch his breath, cock out and still twitching against Bard’s hip, hand spread wide over his happy trail, face pressed into his underarm. His ears are ringing, and his heart still hasn’t slowed from his orgasm, so he almost doesn’t hear it when Bard murmurs, “I still think about the first time we did this.” His voice rumbles through his ribcage, vibrating beneath Bofur’s lips. “When you just up and fucking asked to blow me. On the couch. In the middle of the day.” 

Bofur tries to laugh, but it gets stuck somewhere in his throat and turns into an aborted wheeze, warm and trapped against Bard’s side as he plays with the hair beneath his navel. “God,” he murmurs, lips ghosting against sweat-sticky skin. “We were so high,” he says. 

“We were,” Bard agrees. He’s quiet then, and still, so Bofur rolls away on the bed to prop himself up on an elbow and look at him, to study the darkness of his eyes. “So high,” Bard murmurs then, looking at Bofur, tongue flicking out over his chapped lips before he adds, “but you know, if you’d just kissed me instead of asking to suck my dick, I would have been so much less awkward about everything. I would have been there in a second.” 

It plunges so deep and sudden in Bofur’s gut that he has to close his eyes, heart in palpitations, stomach in lurching tangles. “You—really?” he asks. He remembers that day through the haze of smoke and longing, he remembers it as if it were tattooed on his palm, something he cups close to his chest and squints at blearily in the dark to make sure it’s real. And he remembers that he _wanted_ to kiss Bard, he wanted to kiss him so badly. He’s always wanted to kiss him, even when he felt like it was a dirty, half-buried, impossible dream. 

“Yes,” Bard says, an incredulous laugh bubbling up from his chest, spreading wide and sweet on his face as he smiles. “I’ve never actually been very good at like, casual, no strings attached sex. I wanted strings,” he admits, lifting his arm over his head to rub his fingers absentmindedly at the stucco wall. 

Bofur didn’t really realize there were _already_ strings. It’s a massive relief, to not _have_ to talk about this, to not _have_ to come clean, to not have to _define_ exactly what those strings are and just be content with the knowledge they apparently exist. Maybe Bard already knows they’re both into this deeper than they intended to be. Maybe it _is_ a thing-thing, and has been for awhile. Warmth is rising and swelling in his chest, so he grins, pitching forward to press a kiss to Bard’s armpit, making him hiss and squirm. “I wanted to kiss you,” he admits, mouthing his way across Bard’s chest hungrily, licking over the heaving plane of his stomach, drunk on the smell of his skin. “I wanted strings, too. I was—I just didn’t know how to say that, then. But I’d been wanting to kiss you for _weeks.”_

Bard cards a hand through his hair, arching his back and rocking his hips as his skin heats up beneath the slick, desperate spread of Bofur’s tongue. These are all subtle signs that Bard is getting hard, that he’ll want Bofur’s mouth soon, and Bofur fucking _loves_ that he notices these things now, that he knows them from memory and can track their progress and give Bard what he needs, every time. “You should have,” Bard murmurs, voice shaky as he presses himself into the searching pressure of Bofur’s palm as he feels his thickening cock through his sweats. “Kissed me, I mean. My mouth was yours already.” 

“Jesus,” Bofur chokes out, every other word lost, destroyed by the mere thought of _anything_ of Bard’s _belonging_ to him. Being his. He nips at Bard’s stomach, shoving his hand beneath the waistband of his pants so he can feel him fill up the span of his palm, fire-hot and thick and perfect. “Bard.” 

“You’ll kiss me now?” he asks, fucking Bofur’s fist, tangling his hand into his hair and dragging him up, so that they share gasps. 

“God, yes. Until you kick me off,” Bofur promises, breathing on Bard’s mouth for a few seconds, watching him suck in his inhalations, his eyes pupil-black and shot through with hunger as he licks his lips over and over again, like he’s begging. Then he can’t stand it anymore, and he kisses Bard deeply, swallowing his groan, licking up the taste of it as he smears the precum beading at the crown of his cock down his shaft, making him slick. _I love you,_ he thinks as he licks the inside of Bard’s mouth, loving the way he jerks and bucks under his fingers. And he _knows_ he might not ever get around to _telling_ him the truth, but at least he will hold it here in his own head, trying to kiss Bard deep enough to transfer the words via osmosis. _Love you so much, and I don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ll take your mouth. I’ll take your strings._

They kiss for a long time, and Bard never kicks him off. He hardly lets him breathe. He drives his hands through Bofur’s hair over and over again, he bites his lips and gives him gasps to swallow, but mostly he kisses him hard, fucking into the tight ring of Bofur’s hand until he locks up and spills onto his own stomach in hot white ribbons. Bofur rubs it into his skin, slicking his fingers up in it, experimentally reaching down beneath Bard’s balls to rub into the furred crack of his ass and over the tight clutch of his hole, just to feel. He wonders at the tightness, heart pounding, breath held as Bard kisses all over his face, licks over his pursed lips. Then he spreads his legs, rubs himself against the insistent pressure of Bofur’s fingers. “Still want you there so badly,” he huffs out. “You tell me when you’re ready.” 

“I want to, too,” Bofur confesses, rutting against Bard’s thigh, half-hard again even though he’s already come tonight. “Soon. Tomorrow. This weekend. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking non-stop about it.” 

“Yeah?” Bard breathes, grinning a loose, wild, reckless grin as he lets his head fall back, Bofur still curiously rubbing at him as he licks over his throat, pressing a litany of rough kisses to his pulse, his Adam’s apple, the shallow, stubble-rough valleys on either side of it. “ _Fuck._ That’s fucking hot.” 

“ _You’re_ fucking hot,” Bofur tells him with a smile, withdrawing his hand so that he can lick his fingers, sticky with Bard’s come, the dark-smelling, spicy sweat from his deepest crease. It’s filthy, and it’s good, and he likes it _so_ fucking much that his stomach rolls over as he groans around his own knuckles. 

Bard stares at him with flint-black eyes, very quiet as he curls an arm around the back of Bofur’s neck and pulls him down fiercely to kiss. 

And still, he does not kick him off. He hardly lets him breathe. 

—-

The next time they’re fooling around, the possibility keeps tripping across Bofur’s mind, making his cock flex in his boxers, his heart speed in his chest. The kids are at school, and Bard got sent home early from Whole Foods for a scheduling conflict, so there’s several empty hours stretching ahead of them, _plenty_ of time to puzzle through something new. Bard doesn’t specifically _ask_ for it, though, and Bofur’s too chickenshit to bring it up himself, so he takes his usual place on his knees at the side of the bed, Bard’s thighs bracketing his shoulders as he sucks him down. 

He’s perfectly happy doing this, anyway, so he loses himself to the pure, raw simplicity of it: Bard’s cock on his tongue, filling his mouth, hitting the back of his throat when he slides down as deep as he can go. He's gotten _good_ at sucking cock, practiced enough to notice when Bard is getting close and pulling off so that he can prolong the act, kissing his thighs rough and sweet, razing his teeth over the flickering plane of his stomach, teasing his fingers up and down his shaft to keep him groaning and gasping, the motion slick with drool. 

Bard’s cock is flexing, his stomach is tight. He's close, and Bofur knows it, so he deliberately slows every motion, pauses just to breathe against his inner thigh where the skin is hot and the hair is matted down in sweat and spit, Bard’s fingers clumsy as they grip at the back of his head. Then it happens. “Would you fuck me?” he chokes out, and Bofur snaps up to stare at him, at the way his lips are swollen, his hair spread out in a dark halo on the bed. “You don’t have to now, but—”

“Fuck, _yes,_ yes. I want to. I told you, it's all I think about,” Bofur murmurs, bracing himself and standing, smoothing his hands greedily up Bard’s torso before he mauls back down, grabbing his thighs, his hips. “Just tell me what to do.” 

Bard pulls him down by his hair and kisses him before pulling away breathlessly. “Okay,” he says, eyes dark, cheeks flushed. “How basic do I need to make this instruction manual?” 

Bofur huffs out a laugh against his sternum, where he’s scouring his lips on the sparse patch of hair between Bard’s pectorals. “Well, I've been watching gay porn videos,” he admits, shoving both palms between the mattress and Bard’s body so that he can palm at his ass, squeezing it, making Bard arch and moan. His heart stutters at the sound, cock throbbing. “For research.” 

Bard smiles brilliantly, rocking into Bofur’s hands. “Ah, for research,” he says, something sly in his expression that makes Bofur grin back at him, even though his stomach is tied up nervously. 

“Aye, research. Promise.” 

“I'm afraid I don't trust a porn education,” Bard says then, twisting a chunk of Bofur’s hair around his index and middle finger before brushing his knuckles gently up the line of his throat. 

“Show me, then,” Bofur growls, pressing his face into Bard’s chest, licking his way over to a nipple and flicking his tongue over it, sucking fiercely, loving the way Bard cants into the pressure and whines, so willing and flexible, heart racing under the splay of his mouth. 

“Alright,” he murmurs, voice nothing but a thick rumble. “Well, I’d like to stay on my back so I can kiss you,” he says then, dragging Bofur up to press their mouths together, his own wet and sloppy, graceless with his licks like he’s _hungry._ It makes Bofur gasp, hold him down, and suck his tongue as he ruts against the solidity of his body. This is all so much, and he’s definitely nervous, but he also wants it badly enough to push past that. 

“Good, I want to kiss you, too,” he grinds out. _I want to see your face. Meet your eyes._ “Okay so in videos, when they do it like that, usually the guy getting fucked lies on the bed and the other guy stands at the foot of it. Unless he's ripped and can hold himself up in the plank which as we know, m’not, so.” 

Bard laughs, rubbing his palms up and down Bofur’s back, steadying and sweet. “You really have been watching gay porn.” 

“Yeah! You bet I have. I don't want to come into this shit blind, I want—,” and then he chokes on a ragged inhalation, throat very tight as his heart ricochets against his breastbone, face hidden into the ditch of Bard’s neck as he tries to catch his breath. “I want to make you feel good,” he says eventually, thumbing up and down the ladder of his ribs, marveling that he gets to _touch_ something so good. _I love you,_ he thinks, allowing the revelation to happen consciously, willfully, which is somehow more terrifying than when it happens on accident. Sometimes, the truth surfaces inside of him unbidden, bobbing up to the light with the buoyancy of a secret long buried. But sometimes, he lets himself actually confess it in the dark of his mind. _I love you. I love you, and I can’t pretend otherwise anymore._

Bard is kissing his hair, nuzzling into it, breathing him in. “You will. It _already_ feels so good. God. Want it so fucking bad,” he groans then, reaching between their bodies to touch himself, playing with his spit-wet cock, thumbing through the fluid beading onto his stomach, lewd and glistening. 

“Let’s get this party started then,” Bofur announces, wrenching away so that he can plaster on a grin instead of doing something embarrassing, like tearing up or hyperventilating. “Do you have the lube stuff?” 

“Lube stuff?” Bard echoes, a smile flashing across his face, bright and lovely. “Is that the technical term?” 

“Hey, it sounds better than _personal lubricant,”_ he argues, forcing himself to stand so that he can assume the position, standing at the foot of the bed like he’s seen in porn. He unbuttons his jeans and rolls them down his hips before kicking them into a pile, watching as Bard twists and reaches over to rummage through the drawer of his bedside table until he finds a small bottle of what looks like natural, unscented massage oil. 

“I use this,” he says, handing it to Bofur. “Not name-brand but it does the trick.” 

“Hmm,” Bofur mumbles through pursed lips. He uncaps the bottle and pours a dime-sized amount into his palm before coating his cock with it, watching Bard watch _him,_ his lips parted, eyes dark, everything trained on the filthy, wet sounds his hand is making. “So, you use this yourself—when you jack off? Do you like…,” he stops then, swallowing thickly as his hand stills. He’s not sure what to say, how to phrase it without sounding obscene. 

Bard saves him, chewing his lip almost coyly before he says, “I fuck myself with it, yes,” he murmurs, gesturing at Bofur to hand the bottle back. “I’ll show you.” 

A wave of relief washes over Bofur as he kneels on the bed, touching himself as he stares at the way Bard is lubing up his fingers, bringing a slick-palmful of oil down below his balls as he hikes up one leg, exposing himself, rubbing his shiny fingers over the dark, hairy pucker of his hole. “Fuck,” Bofur breathes, hand moving faster, cock pulsing out precum as he watches attentively, stomach dropping over and over again so that there’s no hope for recovery. All he can do is stare, eyes wide, mouth dry. 

“You okay?” Bard asks as he pushes a finger in up to the first knuckle, pumping it deep before adding another, breath stuttering and clipped. “Is this too much?” 

“Jesus, no,” Bofur whispers, reaching out and palming tentatively up the underside of Bard’s thigh with oil-slick fingers, leaving a shiny trail. “I think you’re beautiful,” he says then, perhaps on accident, his stomach swooping after the words hit the air, his pulse racing.

It makes Bard’s eyes flash, though, which he thinks is a good thing. “Do you want to touch me? You don’t have to,” he says, voice a low, hot, rough thing that snags in Bofur’s gut as he watches Bard fuck himself open, hand making a dirty, delicious _snick snick_ sound. “But you could. I’ll show you how to do it.” 

“I want to, I really want to,” Bofur admits in a rush, licking his lips frantically as he leans forward, squirming closer to Bard’s sudden smile, the lovely white slice of it like a beacon mid-storm. “Please.” 

“Here,” Bard murmurs, getting more oil on his fingers and reaching for Bofur’s hand, coating him and dragging him closer by his wrist, until he nudges up against the slick furl of muscle. Then he guides his fingers inside the hot, slippery clutch of his body, face a crumpled mess, sweat on his brow. “Oh _god,”_ he groans, the grip tightening around Bofur’s knuckles, the most insane, miraculous, fire-hot thing. “Just like that. Push them in.” Bofur does as he’s told, sliding in as deeply as he can, astounded by how _tight_ Bard is inside, how smooth, how burning. He holds his breath in wonder, cock repeatedly twitching untouched against his stomach as he feels Bard out. “Crook them—up toward my stomach,” Bard orders, spreading the hand that’s not pulling his leg up to his chest down over his flickering abdominals, giving Bofur a target to aim for. He bends his fingers and rubs the upper wall experimentally, and Bard locks up and gasps through gritted teeth, tendons standing out in a sweat-sheen on his throat. 

Bofur stops. “Am I hurting you?” he asks, heart pounding. 

“No, not at all, _Jesus,_ you feel so fucking good,” Bard prays, reaching up and petting Bofur’s hair, cupping his face, dragging him closer. “You can put another one in,” he begs, hole fluttering around Bofur’s knuckles, sucking him deeper. “Fuck me just like that, with three of your fingers.” 

_God._ Bard is trembling beneath him, chest heaving, hair stuck in the sweat of his brow. He looks and feels so fucking good spread out and stuffed open like this that Bofur can hardly breathe as he eases another finger in alongside the first two, amazed at the stretch, the grip, the _heat_. As he thrusts in and out, Bard alternates between tightening around the intrusion and loosening up, and it’s _insanely_ fucking hot to witness his body changing, adjusting, accepting. Bofur has been imagining what this might feel like, he’s even prodded experimentally at himself in the shower with a soap-slick finger, but he _could not_ have anticipated how astounding it is, how searing Bard feels inside, how hungry his body is, how _badly_ he wants it. Bofur crooks his fingers on the downstroke like Bard told him, punching breathless moans out of Bard’s lips, stunned by the way he can feel Bard’s heartbeat thundering there against his fingertips as he fucks in deep. He continues on like that for so long that he loses time, forgets that there’s more because this _alone_ is so fucking good: feeling the hot, clenching slick of Bard’s insides, swallowing up his choked, strangled sounds. Bofur could come just like this, finger-fucking Bard’s greedy hole and rutting against the mattress, but at some point Bard wrenches away from a kiss, gasping. “I need your cock,” he begs, disentangling a hand from Bofur’s hair to reach between them and curl his fingers around his shaft, desperately stroking him in graceless jerks. “Please.” 

“Right. Fuck,” Bofur hisses, levering up and withdrawing his fingers with a filthy wet sound, grabbing Bard by his thighs and hoisting him to the foot of the bed. “Do we need a condom?” he asks then, realizing that he’s legit never fucked _anyone_ without a barrier. He doesn't even know what it feels like bare, because he’s only been with women up until this point. It’s overwhelming to think it might be different, with men. 

“Are you clean? Like tested?” Bard asks, knees bent, ass on display. It’s distracting, his puffy hole winking and slick, so pretty that Bofur keeps wanting to drop to his knees and lick it. 

“I mean, it’s been awhile, but yeah. I can use one just to be safe, though,” he huffs out, rubbing his palms mindlessly all over Bard’s thighs and stomach, watching as he nods and reaches up into the bedside drawer again to find a condom. Bard’s hand is shaking as he passes it over, and it makes Bofur want to hold his fist between his palms for a moment, still the tremor, kiss his wrist to feel the thud of his pulse. 

Instead, he rips the condom open with his teeth and rolls it down his cock, not sure he can put this off much longer without thinking too hard and having to back out. “Come here,” Bard says gently, smoothing his palms over Bofur’s perspiration-damp shoulders and pulling him closer, breath hot and salty-sweet over his mouth. Once Bofur is propped over him, arms quaking with nerves, Bard fumbles between them, takes Bofur’s cock in hand, and rubs it back and forth over his hot, puffy hole, eyes half-lidded as he studies Bofur’s face. He’s not sure what Bard is looking for, but he must see something less than terrified because Bard lines his cock up, bears down, and takes a deep breath. “There,” he murmurs. “Push into me.” 

Bofur’s not sure why, but he anticipated that it might take a few tries, that Bard’s body would _resist_ , would be too tight to slide into hot and easy, but that’s not how it happens. Bofur thrusts with his hips, and so _easily,_ Bard breaches, head falling back as he groans, back arching as he fucks down, spears himself open. “God,” he says. 

The tight, maddening clutch of his body is so _good,_ so warm, so unbelievable. Bofur adjusts his weight and nudges a little deeper, gasping at each new, careful inch. “You okay? M’not hurting you?” 

“ _No,_ fuck, you’re perfect, you feel incredible,” Bard huffs out, rolling his hips, sheathing Bofur’s cock deeper until he’s buried balls-deep, shocked at how _simple_ that was, at how much Bard loves it, the way he’s clinging to his shoulders and begging right up against his ear. “Fuck me, please. Don’t stop.” 

Bofur can’t speak, he’s so overwhelmed, so he just takes direction, heat building in his stomach as he bucks in unsteady thrusts until he finds a rhythm. And, _Jesus,_ it’s unbelievable. _Bard_ is unbelievable, warm and willing and incomprehensibly tight. Bofur kisses him through it, smells his hair in great, shuddering lungfuls, pins one of his toned arms above his head on the mattress so that he has something to hold onto, eyes locked longingly on the soft, damp thatch of hair he exposes, wishing he could suck the sweat from it. He has to keep stopping every few minutes to catch his breath and stave off his orgasm, and every time he does this, Bard whines and squirms and rolls his hips to create friction anyway, positively _begging_ with his body, and it’s so insanely hot that Bofur feels like he’s fucking dying. “God,” he chokes out, fucking in and out slowly, marveling at the way Bard’s spine rolls to meet his thrusts, cock weeping and bobbing on his stomach. “You’re so hard, can you—could you come just from me doing this?” 

“If I touch myself I’ll come right now,” Bard grits out, gaze flicking up to hold Bofur’s for a single searing moment, flint-black like the night sky. 

“Fuck, okay,” Bofur breathes, shaking his head in overwhelm, cock pulsing inside of Bard just hearing those _words. “_ I want that. Want you to come on my cock, want to feel you fall apart for me.” 

“Wait,” Bard chokes then, rubbing his hands up and down Bofur’s arms feverishly. “Can I ask you for something?” 

“Anything,” Bofur promises, kissing his temple, licking up the salt of his sweat. He fucking _means_ it, he’s pretty sure that even if Bard asked for something weird, he’d be into it because it’s _Bard,_ and he loves him, and he wants whatever _he_ wants. Wants to give it to him. _Gets off_ on giving it to him. 

“I want you to take the condom off, fuck me bareback, and fill me up with your come,” he huffs out, hole fluttering as he says it, milking Bofur’s cock. 

“God,” Bofur gasps, stomach dropping so hard he feels dizzy, swaying as he presses his face into Bard’s tangled hair. “Of course, I—I want you like that, too. Want to make you drip,” he rasps, even though he has not thought about this specifically until this moment. As he predicted, the fact that Bard wants it is more than good enough for him. He withdraws, cock slick and bobbing for a moment as he peels the condom off and tosses it aside before pushing back into Bard’s wet hole, loving the way he moans low and long, lashes fluttering against his cheek. 

And _fuck._ Bard is so much _hotter_ like this, it almost burns. It’s so good, everything so astoundingly slick and tight that Bofur loses control for a few seconds, hips snapping, breath coming out in lost, desperate gales where his mouth is pressed open and drooling to Bard’s shoulder. “Does it feel good?” Bard bites out between groans.

“Better than anything,” Bofur confesses in a staggered gasp, wiping a tear-slick cheek against Bard’s collar bone as he fucks deep, pushing in and rutting there for a few seconds, the tops of his thighs flush with the undersides of Bard’s as he bears him down into the mattress, crushing him beneath his weight. “Can hardly believe it.” 

He peels back then, getting up on his knees and pulling away so that he can _watch,_ stare down at this miraculous place they’re joined, stunned to awed silence at the sight of his bare cock sliding in and out of Bard’s hole, which is shining and puffy as he hugs him, the dark hair of his crack slicked down with sweat and oil. “Does it look good?” Bard asks then, voice thick. 

Bofur blushes as he thumbs over the stretched tight ring of muscle. “Yes. You’re fucking beautiful,” he says, hoping that’s an alright word to use again, that it’s not too much, that it doesn’t scare Bard away.

“I wish I could see,” Bard says, pulling his knees to his chest to split himself wider. 

“Well. I could take a picture,” Bofur says, and he’s mostly joking, but Bard whines, mouth falling open as he grinds his skull into the mattress, exposing the lovely jagged skyline of his throat. 

“Please,” he says, gesturing indistinctly with one hand. “My phone is right there, on the bedside table.” 

“Seriously?” Bofur asks, stomach clenching like a fist. He’s never done something like this before, film sex, _document_ it for later. The mere thought has him overheating enough that he stops thrusting, body wavering like a flame as his gaze flicks to Bard’s phone. 

“I won't show it to anyone,” Bard says. “I’ll—I can delete afterward. I just want to see. Want to see your cock in me.” 

“Fuck, Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Bofur whimpers, not sure why that’s so hot, why it makes his cock throb inside of Bard just to _think_ about. “Yeah, okay, of course. You got it,” he breathes, pushing deep into Bard and bending him in half to swipe his phone from the table. Then he sits back on his heels again, pulling out enough so there’s actually something to photograph, their slick dirty union on display. 

The first few attempts come out blurry because his hands are lube-sticky and shaking, but the fact that he’s taking pictures at _all_ makes him hot all over, cock visible twitching in Bard’s hole as he nervously clicks. He decides he’s not capturing the glory of it at all, though, so he pushes back in and withdraws slowly, taking a video of the thrust instead, catching Bard’s strangled gasp, which is just as pretty as his hole, he thinks. Then he ends the footage and presses back in, kissing Bard as he passes him the phone. “Here,” he says as he pulls back, holding onto his hips as he dicks him down in short, syncopated thrusts that make his cock slap against his stomach, so fucking heavy and red and gorgeous. “Good enough?” 

Bard watches with his tongue pressed into his cheek, moving back and forth to create a lewd, lickable bulge. Bofur stares down at him, still stunned he gets to have something so _good._ “God, your cock is so fucking beautiful,” is what Bard says in response, which is—well. Bofur feels his cheeks flush, his voice dying in his throat, his body thrumming in overwhelm. All he can do is continue to fuck Bard as he replays the video a few more times with wide, hungry eyes before he locks his phone and drops it to his side, reaching for Bofur and pulling him down fiercely. His ass spasms hot and frantic around his cock for a moment, making Bofur keen into his hair. “Fuck me, please, come inside me,” Bard begs, voice nothing but a whisper, hot breath trapped against the skin of Bofur’s throat. “Love your cock, need it so fucking bad.” 

“Ugh,” is all that Bofur can make himself say because all he’s thinking is _love you, need you so bad,_ and he can’t say that in the middle of sex without ever having said it before, so he silences himself by kissing Bard, fucking the plush, swollen wreck of his lips apart as he hammers into him, hips snapping rhythmically for a few feverish moments, the sensation building rapidly until it capsizes. He comes in a haze of static and with a series of strangled gasps into Bard’s lungs, his cock shooting off as Bard reaches between their bodies and strokes himself to orgasm in seconds, the hot spill of it shocking and glorious between the shift of their bodies. His ass flutters and grips Bofur’s cock in pulses as he comes, and Bofur wasn’t really _expecting_ that, how vice-tight it feels, how fucking _wonderful_. He gasps and sobs into the ditch of Bard’s neck as it happens, wondering why in the fuck no one _told_ him gay sex was like this. Life-changing, heart-breaking. Everything all at once, so much so that he cannot catch his breath no matter how fucking hard he tries. 

He collapses on top of Bard, hips still bucking in small, messy aftershocks as Bard claws at his back with his nails, nuzzling into his hair, licking the side of his face. “God,” he rumbles against Bofur’s temple, voice hoarse and muffled beyond recognition. “You are so _good_ , you make me feel so good.” 

Bofur is deliriously giddy at the same time he could cry. He ends up just making an unrecognizable sound between a laugh and a groan, thin and trapped as he rubs his open mouth over Bard’s hairline. “Yeah? It was good? I didn’t hurt you?” 

“No. You were perfect,” Bard rasps before kissing Bofur deeply, shifting in such a way that Bofur slides out in a mess of come, making Bard cry out so that he may swallow the sound. He curiously rubs down his back to the crack of his ass, experimentally feeling his hole, rubbing his fingers over the slick, maddening swell of his rim. 

“You’re sure? You’re so swollen.” 

“Very sure. God, love you feeling what you did to me. Look,” he growls, reaching back and guiding Bofur’s fingers up inside himself where he’s come-slippery and fucked-out and loose. Bofur holds his breath as he fingers him again, amazed by how _different_ he feels, how hot and wet and puffy. 

“Wow,” he murmurs, eyes sliding shut because Bard is too much to look at right now, too handsome, eyes so glittering and dark that he’s practically _glowing._ Bofur pulls his fingers out so that he can curl his arms around Bard and pull him close, hold him there against his chest like he might be able to keep him if he just squeezes him tight enough. “Thank you for the expert crash course in anal,” he mumbles. 

Bard smooths his hand up and down Bofur’s hip, thumb grazing over the bone. “Mmhmm. Thank you for everything,” he says. “You were an excellent student. Top of the class.” 

Bofur rubs his cheek into the downy brown mess of Bard’s hair, not even caring that a bunch of it is in his mouth, that his eyes are stinging, that this is a countdown, that these are the last moments of New Year’s Eve, that everything is terminal.


	9. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI FRIENDS! first off, I have to apologize for the sort of cliff hanger. Second off, I have to apologize doubly for the fact I probably won't update this for a week or so after this chapter :( I actually write professionally too and have a deadline coming up for a draft, and I've been so wrapped up in this fic I haven't had a chance to really write the meat of it SOOO I am currently holed up in my friend's seaside house with lots of wine and zero distractions (I didn't even bring my pet pigeon) hammering out lesbian mermaid porn so I can get this done by my contractually obligated date. Which will happen!!! But as a result this story has to take a little bit of a back burner. 
> 
> Please follow me on tumblr though if you don't already, my url is alienfuckeronmain and so many people have been doing adorable art and cosplays and playlists for the House of Durin series, so hopefully it will tide you all over to see the incredible content they're producing in this universe!!! use the gay "gay metal au." ALSO MAYBE SOME OF YALL will feel INSPIRED and write your OWN BARDFUR FICS and make me A VERY HAPPY PIGEON MOTHER. Please consider. I am desperate for content. I love them too much. 
> 
> Anyway I love you all TOO, and maybe this will end up being easier than I think and I'll be back on posting schedule with hardly any delay. THANK U! Enjoy the beginnings of the angst and also some very hot sexting.

Bofur is about to fall asleep even though it’s the middle of the day, and he really should be gearing up to go get the kids. His whole body is heavy, though, and Bard is remarkably warm against him, drawing idle patterns on his chest with his fingers, threading them through the hair on his sternum, soothing and sweet. It’s heavenly, really, just _lying_ there, soaking up the gentle touch, his eyes closed, a limb occasionally twitching as he almost drifts off. “What are you doing tonight after you’re off?” Bard eventually asks, voice muffled by the skin of Bofur’s shoulder. 

“Mmph. After I scoop the gang up from school? M’supposed to cook dinner with Bilbo. We’re trying to hang out more, like we used to. Bet you Thorin will be there, though. Bet you they’ll suck each other’s faces the whole time,” he says, even though this is a half-lie. He doesn’t have _concrete_ plans to cook with Bilbo. During their trip to Berkeley Bowl, they resolved to spend more time together, they even shook hands over a display of zucchini on the matter, after fake-spitting in their palms because Bilbo would have nothing to do with real spit. He’s supposed to cook _some_ day this week, and there’s an unanswered text on his phone _suggesting_ tonight, but Bofur hasn’t committed. Of course, he’d rather spend the evening with Bard. Even if all they do is order takeout and try to find a movie to watch with the kids that no one will argue over. He’d almost _always_ rather spend time with Bard, now, which is very stupid and inconvenient because he's not _sure_ Bard wants to spend all his time with him, even if his invites to non-work hang outs have gotten increasingly frequent. Bofur is also hesitant to give in to the desire to do something that he’ll just _miss_ once it’s inevitably gone. He might be in love, but he can’t act like he’s in a relationship when he’s not. “Why? You got some date tonight you need me to watch the kids during?” 

Bard laughs, teeth pressed into Bofur’s neck for a moment so that he can feel the shape of his smile. “No, my mom had jury duty this afternoon, so she’s in the East Bay. She invited herself over for dinner, of course. So if you wanted to wiggle out of having to watch Bilbo and Thorin make out, you’re welcome to stay. You should meet my mom without having to cross the bridge.”

Bofur feels his heart speed up under the weight of Bard’s palm, thudding as he squirms. “I don’t think your mom wants to meet your babysitter.” 

“She does,” Bard says, hand sliding up to cup Bofur’s throat as he swallows thickly, smoothing over the motion. “The kids talk about you constantly.”

And frankly, Bofur doesn't know what that _means._ He never knows what it fucking means that Bard so easily refers to the kids in moments like this: bringing up Bofur’s role as his _employee_ when they’re tangled up in a sheen of sweat, totally naked. It makes his heart clench tight and defensive in his chest, makes him wonder if Bard hardly _realizes_ the way he treats him as more of a _wife_ than a babysitter these days. It’s getting harder and harder for Bofur to separate, but then at the end of the week, he always gets that check. Bard’s neat, looping signature on it in crisp black ink, and he’s reminded that this is not a relationship, no matter how much it feels like one. It’s an arrangement. A symptom of convenience. One of the many services he’s paid for. He turns his head to bury his face in Bard’s hair, inhaling fiercely, filling his lungs with the dream of pine and sweat, just for a moment before he exhales. “I really—you know I have a life outside this job,” he murmurs quietly. “I said I’d cook with Bilbo, I should really cook with Bilbo. He’s making enchiladas. Needs a madman to fold them up while the fried tortillas are still hot.” 

Bard was already quiet, but he somehow gets quieter, his breath shallow and still for a moment as he presses closer, fingers flexing on the swell of Bofur’s stomach. “Alright,” he says eventually, pressing a kiss to the skin between the splay of his thumb and index finger as he pushes himself up onto his elbow. “I understand.” There’s a steeliness to it that immediately makes Bofur want to take it all back, set this moment on rewind. _Nevermind,_ he thinks, stomach swooping before it knots. _I’ll stay if you want me to. I’ll stay until you throw me out. I’ll stay, and I’ll stay even if you’re just paying me to be your surrogate girlfriend, and this will end once you find a real one._ Instead, he presses the tip of his tongue to his teeth and tries to slow his breath. He's having to get more and more careful about the things he lets himself say when he's hurting. 

“Will you shower with me before you go?” Bard asks then, dark eyes flashing up for a moment and holding Bofur’s before they dart back down. It happens too quickly for Bofur to read anything important into them, and all he’s left with is a ghost of something like want. Like regret. 

His heart aches. Bard doesn’t _know._ He doesn’t know that _of course_ he will shower with him and wish for a hundred more afternoons spent under scalding spray, feeling wet skin with open palms, drinking in the taste of his breath. That there is no limit to what he will do, to what scraps he will beg for. “Yeah,” he says gently, hoisting himself with much effort so that he might kiss Bard’s brow before rolling off the bed. “I’ll shower.” 

And so they do. The steam is choking in its thickness, and Bard is the loveliest thing, his hair slicked down his neck, black and shiny, his skin pinking up in the heat. Bofur doesn't want to think about what a lifetime of witnessing such beauty would look like, so of course it’s _all_ he thinks about. How there are so many things he’d die to call his own. How there are so many years stretching ahead of him that he must endure, how he’s becoming increasingly aware of the terrible fact that he’d really love to spend them all like this: pushing Bard up against the soap-stained sliding Plexiglas of his shower door, kissing him breathless. Drunk on his skin. Fingers creeping into the crack of his ass to brush over the proof he’s just _had_ him on his back and begging. He’s spent so _long_ running from the things he wants, he didn’t even realize when they snuck up and made a home inside him. 

Bard traces the bones in Bofur’s face with pruney fingers, sucking his tongue until the hot water is all gone, and they step out shivering, laughing, dripping on the mat. And Bofur really, _really_ doesn’t want to go back home. He wants more than a drawer of clothes in Bard’s dresser. More than a toothbrush by the sink. He wants a hundred unspeakable things, tattoo-permanent and twice as reckless. 

Eventually Bofur pulls on his jeans, laces his boots, and realizes he’s never been so fucking bitter about a paycheck in his _life._

_—-_

When Bofur drives home in the evening, he can’t stop thinking about Bard. Fucking him, showering with him, threading his fingers through his wet hair, thumbing over the elegant arches of his brows, studying him through the haze of steam. He can’t stop thinking about how fucking _wrong_ it feels to leave every time Bard suggests he stay. He can’t stop thinking about the ways it’s getting harder and harder to self-preserve, to trick himself into thinking he can keep this casual and protect his heart with layers and layers of butcher paper. The blood is soaking through, and everything is sodden and stained red now. He stares at the windshield and practices smiling his usual smile at stoplights, but every fucking time, it makes his cheeks ache, so he gives up after a while and dreams of the beer he has waiting for him in the fridge. 

“M’home and ready to fry some fucking _tortillas!”_ he announces after he busts in the House of Durin, shouting to be heard over the din of Metallica’s “Welcome Home _._ ”It’s a funny song to arrive to, and normally he’d be entertained by the coincidence, but today it just makes him feel weird, sad, and displaced. “Bilbo?” he asks, sidestepping closer to the kitchen, perpetually afraid of walking in on something pornographic. 

Thankfully, Thorin is sitting on the kitchen table drinking a root beer, and Bilbo is at the kitchen counter, chopping onions. There are three whole feet between them, which is a relief. “Oh perfect!” Bilbo exclaims, brandishing his chef’s knife dramatically before reaching for Bofur, curling his free hand around his lower back and squeezing him close in a one-armed hug. “I was just beginning to think Thorin would have to help me assemble these, but then! You appeared just in time. Truly wonderful. Wash up,” he says, steering Bofur to the sink. 

“You saved me from burnt fingertips,” Thorin announces, holding up his root beer and smiling. “Thank you.” 

“Happy to help,” Bofur says with a grin as he soaps up his palms obediently. “We all know I have the heat tolerance of a dragon.” He doesn’t fess up to the fact that he’s mostly helping with dinner just so he has a decent excuse to avoid Bard’s house tonight. He doesn’t even want to admit to _himself_ how badly he needs some concrete, external plan to keep him from spending all his time there, holding Bard’s dark, charged gaze across the table over dinner, brushing against him subtly as they tidy up the kitchen, leaning into his shoulder as they sit side by side on the couch playing Uno with the kids. “Okay,” he says, shutting off the water, drying his hands on his jeans. “Put me to work.” 

It’s actually pretty fun, hanging out with Bilbo and Thorin. They're being very polite, for one. They've only kissed, like, four times, and only _one_ of those four sounded like there was tongue involved. Thorin is manning the playlist, and he and Bofur are singing along to every song, doing air guitar or drumming on the edge of the counter when Bilbo is not forcing spatulas into their hands and demanding they pay attention. It’s a good time, and even if it doesn't _completely_ distract Bofur from thinking about Bard, it at least reminds him that he has friends to talk to about it, if he wants to. If he needs to get anything off his chest. Or complain. Or cry. He’s one and a half beers into his six-pack when he finally decides he can’t stand it anymore. 

“So,” he says as he spoons out some shredded chicken and cheese into the hot, oily tortilla Bilbo has just handed him on a plate. He wraps it up and stuffs it into the pan beside the others, fast enough that his fingers hardly even smart. “I did some anal stuff today.” 

Thorin chokes on his root beer as Bilbo whips around, gasping. “What?! Like _today_ today? Like _right fucking now?”_ He’s trying to use the tongs to rescue the currently frying tortilla from the frying pan, but he keeps tearing little bits of it off instead. Finally, he wrinkles his nose and scoops it out, handing the pathetic, torn-up thing to Bofur to try and salvage. 

_“_ Well, yeah, before I came home. So like, this afternoon.” He checks his watch. “Four hours ago.” 

“Oh my god. I’m so glad I made you wash your hands. Oh my god. Did you—what end—how—”

Thorin, seeming having recovered, interrupts with, “Did you fuck or get fucked?” 

“I did the fucking,” he confesses, cheeks heating up. He rolls another enchilada up, hands trembling a bit. It feels _good,_ though, to talk about this. Like he’s actualizing it, normalizing it, making it _real._ “Definitely not opposed to being fucked, though. It’s a whole new world out there. I’m just along for the ride.” 

“Oh my god,” Bilbo says again, eyes wide. It seems to be all he can say. 

“So,” Thorin says conversationally, eyes flashing blue and brilliant above the neck of his bottle as he throws back a sip. “How was it?” 

Bofur can’t even lie about it. The truth comes bubbling up sudden and with feeling, his gut clenching like night-blooming jasmine, folded in on itself beneath the sun. “Fucking amazing,” he whines. Bilbo has stopped frying in his shock, which means Bofur has stopped making enchiladas, so he walks to the fridge to get another beer, deciding the several inches left in his current can are too warm and not worth it. He needs a _cold_ beer for this conversation. “Guys. I’m so fucking in love with him,” he admits, voice low and grave, lips pursed flat as he sags pitifully against the counter, gaze sweeping up to the ceiling. 

“I know!” Bilbo yelps, throwing a wadded up dish towel at Bofur’s legs. “Please go fucking marry him. This is a _Sound of Music_ situation except there _isn’t_ even a baroness and you’re _not_ even a nun. There are _zero_ practical reasons why you cannot marry this man.” 

“Um, except that he doesn't _love_ me and I’m literally his employee?!” Bofur reminds him, popping his beer open forcefully. He takes a thoughtful sip, smoothing his thumb over his mustache. “He _did_ ask me to meet his mother tonight, though. Maybe that counts for something. But clearly I made enchiladas instead.” 

Thorin chokes on _another_ mouthful of root beer, this time spraying it all over the floor. Bilbo, on the other hand, just _screams,_ wordlessly and with much enthusiasm before he stomps over to collect the dish towel he only just threw at Bofur, pushing it over to the root beer spill with the toe of his tennis shoe. He vigorously cleans it up, batting Thorin away when he tries to help. Thorin and Bofur are both too scared to say anything for a moment so they just patiently wait for Bilbo’s deep, rattling inhalation. “Why, might I ask, aren’t you meeting his mother?” he snaps then, bending to pick up the dirty dish towel before bringing his fists defiantly to his hips. 

“Because! It’s weird!” Bofur tells him, crossing his arms. “We don't call each other—we’re not like _that_. It’s not like _you guys,_ where you’re actually together and like, building a future or whatever, _”_ he explains, nodding between Bilbo and Thorin, mouth flickering over a repressed frown. “I’m just this person who’s there all the time in his house and I fucking want him so bad and he knows it, so it’s—to him it’s _convenient_. I’m a dumbass if I think it's more than that. He wants me to meet his mom because I’m his _babysitter._ Not because I’m his boyfriend.” His throat is thick by the time he gets it all out, his heart pounding in his chest as Thorin looks at him carefully, something warm but pitying in his eyes. Because Thorin—Thorin probably _knows,_ on some level, what it’s like to not feel good enough. To _know_ you’re not good enough. 

They lock eyes for a long time as Bilbo flits around the kitchen, flicking the burner back on to heat up his oil, shaking his head and clicking his tongue before he declares, “Well I, personally, think you are an idiot, who is afraid.” 

“Okay, well yeah,” Bofur admits, shrugging and frowning. “That, too.” 

In that moment, Thorin heaves himself up from the table and stalks over to Bofur, cutting a very imposing shape in the kitchen until he softens up, leaning against the counter beside him and draping an awkward, heavy arm over his shoulder. “It’s also okay to be afraid,” he says. 

Bofur lets out a long, painful sigh, shifting under the comforting weight of Thorin’s arm. “I’ve never seen _Sound of Music,”_ he admits. 

Bilbo makes an affronted sound, spinning around to face them both. “I know what we’re doing after enchiladas, then.” 

So, once the pan is in the oven and Bofur’s fingers are only minimally burnt, they bed down on the couch while Bilbo expertly locates a free, likely illegal stream of the movie. “You _are_ Maria von Trapp,” he announces as he hits play and clicks them out of a series of pop-up ads. “Always singing…A flibbertigibbet… a will-o'-the wisp…a clown.” 

“Hey!” Bofur snaps. 

“It’s Julie Andrews,” Thorin tells him, like that somehow clarifies the matter. “It’s a compliment.” 

“Definitely a compliment,” Bilbo agrees before settling back down onto the couch as the opening credits begin, snuggling into Thorin’s side and making Bofur _ache_ with how much he misses Bard. Bard who is not his boyfriend. Bard who is probably doing meal-prep right now if he’s cooking for his mother, or thumbing through takeout menus if he’s not. He swallows with a thick throat and commits to watching. 

A couple of hours, a couple of enchiladas, and far too many beers later, it’s over, and Bofur is literally fighting _tears_ because he’s _an embarrassing human_ and the _Sound of Music_ _made him fucking cry. “_ I will never be as lucky as Maria,” he moans from the couch, where he has collapsed, spreading out steadily over the course of the movie so that Thorin and Bilbo are squeezed over to one end, Bilbo very nearly in Thorin’s lap. “I’m gonna be a nun forever.” 

Bilbo kicks him. “Bofur, you’re _not_ a nun. You’re gonna kiss your boyfriend in a gazebo and get married and inherit three children and hopefully none of them will have Nazis for boyfriends.” 

Bofur has nothing to say to that, though, so he just gets himself another cold beer from the fridge and wipes his eyes with the root-beer-sticky dish towel because that’s about where he feels right now. 

—-

It’s well after midnight, and Bofur is so fucking tired, but still, he cannot sleep. He has that “Climb Every Mountain”song stuck in his head, and he’s somehow both too drunk and not drunk enough, the world hazy and spinning around him, the still world beyond the carousel lights. He has to wait for it to stop its unsteady rotation before he can stumble off and into the night, but for now, he’s stuck in motion, sprawled out on his unmade bed and staring at the ceiling ricocheting around him, waiting to feel something that is not longing sickened with dizziness. 

But the peace never comes, so instead, he packs a bowl and strips down to his boxers and a sheen of nervous sweat. 

Once he’s a little cross-faded, he keeps lifting his waistband to peer down at his own dick, brow furrowed, throat tight. _I was in him,_ he thinks, reaching down and taking himself out, rubbing experimentally up and down his soft cock until it’s not soft anymore, thickening up in his palm, twitching at the memory. _Just a few hours ago, I was inside Bard._

It’s so surreal to think about. It also makes Bofur’s stomach drop, his breath come short and choked as he thumbs over the slit of his cock, imagining the perfect, infernal heat of Bard’s body. What it felt like to be buried inside of it. What it _looked_ like. He’s messed up enough right now to not stop himself from grabbing his phone, staring at the screen blearily as he types out a text with a single, tremulous thumb. Bard is probably asleep or maybe even still with his mother. The likelihood of him lying in bed thinking about Bofur the way Bofur is thinking about him is slim to none, but still—Bofur cannot leave hangnails well enough alone. He must worry them. He must dig. He’s hard, he’s drunk, he’s high, he’s lonely, and so he hits send. _Hello, provided you’re not still entertaining your mom right now, could you send me that video I took earlier?_ As he waits for a response he feels skeezy in the space between, so he follows up with, _hope your dinner was nice :)_

 _Thankfully she’s gone. i’m in bed now,_ Bard texts back. The vibration is comforting in Bofur’s palm, steadying him, making him slow the frantic motion of his other hand. He grips himself at the base of his cock and feels the thud of his own heartbeat. _do you want it for more research or are you perhaps touching yourself?_

Bofur smiles, all alone in his room, which is still spinning. _u caught me,_ he texts back.

The video comes next, the thumbnail just as raw and lovely and obscene as the memory, the image burnt into Bofur’s mind. So much slick skin, dark hair, rumpled sheets, sweat-shine. Before he has a chance to type anything out, another image comes, this time a still of Bard in bed shirtless presumably as they speak, his hand low on his stomach, thumb hooked suggestively under the waistband of his sweats. 

It makes Bofur’s heart stop. All the skin. The salt and pepper hair on his chest that Bofur knows the feel of under his tongue when he kisses him there, between his pectorals. _god. you’re a handsome devil,_ he texts back, fingers shaking so much that it takes, like, three tries to hammer out the letters sans typos. 

_wish you were here,_ Bard sends back, followed by, _are you hard? may I see?_

God, _fuck._ The thought of Bard actually wanting to _see him_ like this, wanting a _picture,_ is incomprehensibly hot. His cock flexes in his hand, and he snaps a photo before he can think too much about it. He’s never taken a dick pic in his _life,_ and he supposes thirty-nine is pretty late to start, so it comes out a little weird, at a strange angle. He squints at the picture. It’s not perfect, and he doesn’t look particularly big or good, but whatever, Bard has obviously seen it in person with no complaints, so he sends it anyway, ignoring the lick of anxiety in his gut, beneath the rapid-fide swell and release of his lungs. 

_fuck,_ Bard sends back, and Bofur reads it over and over again for a few seconds as he touches himself, grip lubed up by his own precum, which is pulsing out of him messily, the whole of his cock wet and twitching. He’s hardly _ever_ this turned on when he masturbates, and it’s overwhelming, dizzying. _I’m so sore from you. can feel it everytime i sit down. cant stop thinking of you inside me,_ Bard says then. It makes Bofur groan aloud, the sound startling him in its rawness, its candor, its irrepressibility. 

_is that a good thing?_ he asks, just to be sure. 

Bard immediately texts back _yes. definately. makes me so hard._ And then, after a text, another picture follows, this time of his cock, which is indeed very hard. It’s a close-up of the glistening crown, and it makes Bofur gasp, his mouth suddenly flooding as he imagines the salt and bitterness on his tongue, the smooth, fire-hot skin. He fucks his fist in greedy, stilted thrusts, but it's not _enough_ anymore, so he grabs the lotion he keeps on the bedside table and generously lubes himself up to ease the motion, to make things slick. He’s hungry enough for it that he even dips his fingers down beneath his balls to rub lotion over his own asshole, gliding his fingers over the muscle without actually pressing _in,_ just experimentally touching, feeling. The sensation is shockingly good. Just wet, scalding hot, _filthy._

He wipes one hand on his sheets so that he can text back, _jesus christ. making my mouth water._ His orgasm is already building rapidly, abdominals tight beneath the layer of softness over his gut, so he scrolls back to the video and hits play, jerking himself off fast and hard at the obscene image of his cock stretching Bard’s hole, pushing home, dragging that breathy moan from parted lips just off camera. He repeats it twice, but at the same time he thinks about Bard touching _himself,_ just a few miles away and spread out on his own sheets, long fingers curled around his cock and pulling on it, looking at Bofur’s picture, watching the same video. Thinking of him. Maybe even pushing a finger into his used-up hole, still puffy and sore. It’s that image that pushes Bofur to come in the heat of his fist, sticky and hot and sudden, breath knocked out of him like he’s just fallen. 

He lies there dazed on his back for a few moments, heart pounding in his chest beneath his phone, which he apparently dropped onto his breastbone in the midst of coming. When he opens his eyes, they’re static-cloudy and everything feels too bright, so he uses those hazy moments of unreality to snap a picture of the load he spilled all over his fingers and sends it to Bard before he can think better of it, before he convinces himself it's too much. 

_God. let me suck your fingers next time i see you. I'll suck them when i come on your cock,_ Bard texts back, and Bofur _just_ came so hard, but his stomach still clenches as he reads, cock flexing pitifully where it's softening against his thigh. Before he gathers the strength to respond, Bard sends him a picture of his stomach, taut and flickering muscle painted in a pearlescent white spatter. It’s so fucking beautiful that Bofur whimpers a little before using his boxers to mop himself up and kick underneath his sheet. _Wish I could lick that up. kiss you with a dirty mouth,_ he texts back, wiping at his newly heavy eyes with the back of his hand. 

_me too. I wish you were here,_ Bard texts back. 

Bofur stares at the words on the screen, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the text, heart tight and aching in his throat. He’d touch Bard like this, if he were next to him. He’d comb his fingers through his hair like he always does after they come, tucking the flyaway bits behind his ear and gently untangling the parts that are sweat-snagged. He’d struggle to stay awake as Bard drifted off because he likes to do that, lie there in silence and look at him for as long as he can stand it, watch the rise and fall of his chest, the minute, secret motions of the tender hollow in his throat as the blood thrums below his skin. 

But Bard is not here, so he doesn’t need to stay awake unless he wants to remain mired in wanting things he can’t have. So Bofur can fall away to darkness, eyes fluttering closed and limbs too heavy to even shut his light off, the golden glow of his bedside lamp filtering red through his eyelids, like there’s an eclipse. He falls asleep with his phone in his hand and does not wake even as it vibrates out of it and onto the floor with a clatter. 

—-

The morning comes too soon. Bofur awakes with a headache just after dawn and very nearly convinces himself that his alarm isn't real, since it sounds bizarre and far away from the floor, muffled by his dirty clothes. He forces himself to roll out of his sheets anyway, groaning and scooping his phone up from the ground so he can silence the bleat of the alarm. 

As he squints at the screen, he realizes he has a couple of texts from Bard that he must have missed last night. 

_I know its late, but if you wanted to come over you could,_ the first one says, followed by, _not for sex, just to sleep._ There’s no follow-up or goodnight text after that, so he can’t tell if Bard crashed, too, or if he waited up for a response, trying to keep his eyes open as the darkness of midnight gave way to a new day. If he stayed up wondering, wishing, or if it is only Bofur who is constantly at war with such things. Either possibility makes his heart clench up in a hundred messy feelings, and he doesn't have a single word for any of them because he hasn’t had his coffee yet. Still, he can’t shake the worry that he fucked up, somehow. Done something wrong, revealed himself as a disappointment. Or maybe _he’s_ just disappointed because he probably would have found a way to get to South Berkeley last night if he knew he was welcome. He would have done anything to crawl into the warmth of Bard’s bed, just to fall asleep and wake up beside him a few hours later, hand tucked against the familiar, bony shape of his hip. 

_shit, i passed out last night and didn't see these until the morning,_ he texts. _Wasn't ignoring you, promise. See you today :)_

Bard doesn’t text back, though, and Bofur makes himself half-sick worrying about it as he drives to his house, crunched up close to the steering wheel with his eyes narrowed because the fog is extra thick this morning, and he feels like he can’t see more than three feet in front of him. It makes the drive crawl by terribly slowly, so he rolls up a little late, heart in his throat as he jogs to the porch. Bard meets him there at the door, jacket already on, keys in his hand. “Was starting to get worried,” he says wryly, mouth twisted into something that is neither a smile nor a grimace. 

Bofur has to stop himself from touching him right there on the porch, his hand awkwardly landing in the space between them and flexing at nothing, fingers prickling. He wishes he could rest his palm on his waist and squeeze. He wishes he could kiss him goodbye before work. He wishes he could blurt _are you mad I didn’t come over last night? Because I wanted to, I wanted to so badly, I’m fucking sick of sleeping apart and I don’t want to do it anymore and even though sending you sexy texts was great, I think the real deal is better. I also think live-in nannies are a thing? Maybe?_ But it’s far too much of an absurd, raw deluge under any circumstances, let alone when Bard is running late for work and his kids are definitely still within earshot. “I know, I’m sorry,” he says instead, taking off his hat, crumpling it nervously in his palms. “The fog slowed me down.” 

“It’s fine,” Bard says, smiling indisputably this time, though it does not reach his eyes, which are heavy, the skin beneath them lined and darker than usual, like bruises. “I will see you in a few hours.” Then he’s gone, whisking off into the thick, cloying gray-white. 

The whole interaction throws Bofur off his game. To add insult to injury, the kids are _crazy_ this morning for some indiscernible reason. Usually they’re fairly subdued over breakfast, sleepy and quiet until they start to perk up on the drive, but the moment Bofur walks in, the whole _house_ is alive with taut, chaotic energy. Tilda is crying incomprehensibly about something that Bain will not own up to, and Sigrid accidentally spills her cereal all over herself and takes a gazillion years to change clothes. Bofur gives up on getting them to school on time, opting instead to spend the majority of the morning testing his skills at pre-teen conflict negotiation and knocking anxiously on Sigrid’s door while she screams at him to go away. 

Once he _finally_ wrangles them into the car and drops them off, he sits behind the wheel for a moment, staring out at the parking lot, taking deep breaths and waiting for his hands to stop shaking. The kids are unpredictably difficult every few weeks, and it’s not _usually_ an issue, but today he feels out of his depth, shaky and overwhelmed. Bofur tells himself it has nothing to do with Bard, but he _knows_ at the same time that it does. _Everything_ does, right now. It’s like he’s a river branching off into hundreds of tiny streams and deltas, and no matter how far out to sea Bofur tries to swim, he’ll always be carried back by the same current and end up thinking about him, obsessing over him, worrying that he’s done something wrong even if he knows logically that he hasn’t. 

Worst of all is that instead of swimming, all he wants to do is claw to the shore, climb out, and _run._ Or break something before he is broken.

Instead, it’s his car that breaks. 

He catches his breath and scrubs his hand over his face, smoothing his index finger and thumb over the tips of his mustache before he turns the key in the ignition so that he might drive back to Bard’s house. Unfortunately, the car coughs and sputters but does not start. He tries again, but no dice, so instead he just sits there, staring, thinking that on any other day, he might have had a good laugh at this, but his head is still aching and his heart still feels weird and half-broken, so instead he’s just _numb,_ his whole body shutting down to protect himself from the overwhelm of _nothing_ being _easy._ A few minutes pass, but of course, nothing happens or magically smites him from the earth, so he tries the key one more time before muttering a quiet, emphatic _“fuck”_ to himself and grabbing his phone. 

Bofur texts _everyone_ in the House of Durin in a muted panic. Half of them don’t answer (they’re likely still sleeping, it _is_ 8:30 am in the fucking morning on a Friday, after all), and the half who _do_ are either at work or don’t have immediate access to a car. After he exhausts his options, it seems his best bet is Dori, who, in an hour, will be able to borrow the company van at the carpet-cleaning place he works at and come get him on his break. This is not ideal, as Bofur does _not_ want to hang out awkwardly in a parking lot of an elementary school for any longer than he has to, but it’s also his only option, so he calls AAA and prepares to lie down as inconspicuously as he possibly can in the back seat until he’s rescued by either Nori or a tow truck, depending on who arrives first.

He decides to text Bard, even though the thought makes him so anxious that he feels sick all over again. Bofur just thinks he should probably _know_ it will be awhile before he’s back at the house, cleaning up breakfast and doing the four loads of laundry he had planned for the day. _Hey, my car broke down in the school parking lot, just called a tow. Wanted to let you know it’ll be a minute before i’m back!_

A few tight-chested moments pass agonizingly before a response comes, but when it does, it makes Bofur’s heart pound. He presses his face into the flap of his hat, sucking in deep, measured breaths until he psyches himself up enough to read it again. _I got my shift covered, on my way to get you,_ is what it says. Decisive. Non-negotiable. Stomach-twisting in its certainty.

Bofur’s eyes sting as he types out, _are you sure? you don’t have to!,_ before deleting every letter one by one and deciding instead on, _shit, ok. thank you,_ because he _knows_ Bard is sure. Bard is a good man, a _caring_ man, and he does things passionately and selflessly and it makes it very difficult to remember that just because it feels like it sometimes, this doesn’t mean he, like, _loves_ Bofur. 

His heart still flutters pitifully when Bard pulls up shortly after the tow drives off with Bofur’s poor car. He’s sitting on the curb, knees drawn together and boots splayed, staring at a row of ants marching along the cracked pavement when he hears the familiar crunch of Bard’s Honda’s tires on asphalt and _immediately_ his pulse begins to pound, Pavlovian, like his body is tied to Bard’s with an invisible string. “Hello,” Bard says after rolling down the window. “Rough morning?” 

“Fuck. Yes,” Bofur groans as he hauls himself up, crossing his arms so that he doesn’t lean over and kiss Bard right through the unrolled window like he’s the ladylove of some sexy ‘60s greaser who’s about to drag race in the LA river for pink slips. “M’so sorry, you didn’t have to come get me.” 

“It’s fine,” Bard says, smile strained in this way that makes Bofur’s stomach plummet. The unshakable feeling that he’s done something wrong creeps back into his limbs as he walks over to the passenger side and climbs in, his whole body tight and nervous. He feels like a kid all over again, the class clown who finally shot one too many rubber bands at the chalkboard behind the teacher’s back, now doomed to wait outside the principal’s office preparing to accept his fate. He feels like he’s _in trouble._ Except Bard is _not_ the principal, and Bofur is _not_ a kid anymore, he should really work on not jumping to the worst-case scenario interpretation of every single little thing that happens to him, but…maybe he’ll start that tomorrow. Today already feels like a fucking do-over, anyway. “You don’t have to pay me for any hours since you’re missing your own,” Bofur says, eyes locked on the road as Bard pulls out of the parking lot, fingers drumming anxiously on the steering wheel even though there’s no music. It’s weird, being in a mostly silent car. Bofur fights the urge to fiddle with the radio dial. 

“I’m not—that doesn’t matter to me,” Bard says then, voice clipped and exhausted sounding. He takes a deep breath, then, and asks, “Why did you text Dwalin before me? He was the one who told me you were stranded. I was already getting my shift covered when you finally texted.” 

Bofur blinks, pursing his lips together tightly into a firm, bloodless line. He doesn’t know what to _say._ It didn’t even occur to him to text Bard until he had a plan worked out. He didn’t want to be a burden, and he _knew_ Bard was at work. He—he didn’t want to bother him because that’s the sort of thing a partner does, not an employee. _You’re not my fucking boyfriend,_ he thinks about saying, but he’s well aware it will bring tears with it if he even manages every word, so he bites it back. “I got it taken care of, Bard. I didn’t think it was your problem.” He risks looking at him and immediately regrets it. Bard’s eyes are dark, his jaw is set, and it makes Bofur’s breath catch in his throat, his scalp prickle. “Are you _angry_ with me?” 

Bard shakes his head and sighs. “No,” he says automatically. “I’m not.” Then he reaches out and gently squeezes Bofur’s thigh, thumbing over the outside seam of his jeans. It makes Bofur’s heart stop, the muscles of his stomach jumping as he tenses up reflexively under Bard’s palm as he tries his hardest not to jerk out from under the touch. He _wants_ Bard’s hand there. He feels like he needs it, like it’s his one grounding tie to the universe right now.He’d crawl into Bard’s lap, if he could. He’d beg for a hundred stupid reassurances if he was the sort of person who did not find the mere _thought_ of asking for something like that unspeakably shameful. Instead, he just takes a deep breath and forces himself to stare out the window at the rows of passing houses and their vast, overgrown gardens. 

“Can I ask you something?” Bard eventually murmurs, as he takes his hand back. 

“Shoot,” Bofur says, even though he feels like there’s a giant red, flashing _DANGER_ sign suddenly going off in his head, his palms sweating as he wipes them on his jeans, smiling defiantly like a skull smiles for the simple, hollow comfort of clenching his teeth together. 

“Is there a reason you’ve never invited me to your house? I’ve dropped you off a few times. You always just leave and never invite me in.” 

It’s not what Bofur was expecting, so his gaze flashes to Bard, brow furrowed. “I—I didn’t think you’d want to see it? It’s gross and loud and crowded. Doesn’t seem like your jam, I don’t know.” 

“It doesn't have to do with you hiding me from your roommates, who think I’m a woman?” Bard asks, shooting a look at Bofur, eyes narrowed, mouth twisted defensively. 

It’s so shocking and absurd that Bofur actually laughs, though it comes out more like a sharp, reactionary bark. He is not ashamed of Bard, he's ashamed of the House of Durin. Ashamed of himself, of the way he lives, the stained carpet and plywood coffee table and beer-sticky kitchen floor that doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should. “No!” he spits out incredulously. “Bilbo and Thorin know about you, I—I fucking told them. There.” 

It seems to do the trick because Bard softens a little, his locked arms loosening so that there’s a slight bend in his elbows, his grip less white-knuckled on the wheel. He inhales, low and long before blowing out, “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” Bofur says. The blood is rushing in his ears, and he feels like his heart is racing ahead of them, getting lost in fog, leaving the rest of his body behind to hover here, strapped down by the seat belt. 

“I have the day off now,” Bard says, voice reduced to a low, trembling murmur. Then he turns to Bofur at the next stoplight, something pleading in the blown-wide black of his pupils. “Will you show me where you live?” 

Bofur has to choke back a gale of frantic, nervous laughter. This whole conversation—this whole _morning—_ is absolutely ridiculous, so ridiculous that he doesn’t even know what’s _happening,_ what Bard _means_ by any of this shit because he’s too scared to press on it, to pick at the scab. Last night, Bard said he wanted to suck on his fingers. Today, he’s demanding a tour of the House of Durin. It’s incomprehensibly absurd. It feels like a _trap,_ like Bard is _trying_ to uncover his flaws so that he has a decent excuse to end things, but literally all Bofur possibly can do is agree because if Bard asks him for something, he’s powerless. He’ll give in, over and over again, because he loves him. “Fine,” he says, slumping down in the passenger seat, tearing his gaze away from Bard’s so that he can stare at a streak on the windshield. “Let’s go.” 


	10. Chasing Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY FAM I'M BACK!!! Mermaids were written...seaside strolls were had...fish pussy was eaten...etc. I'M HERE, though, and I managed to write another chapter while I was out of town and my editors came through with a quick turn around so! Here it is for you! This is another cliff hanger and also the angstiest chapter yet to buckle up and brace yourselves!!! TW for drinking to cope
> 
> enjoy, I missed you guys!!!

The higher they climb, the thicker the fog becomes. Bofur is almost grateful, for it obscures the surrounding frats, the hordes of students in their Cal cardigans and hoodies, the giant yellow and blue Greek letters above every doorstep. Maybe the House of Durin will look less ridiculous if it’s not embedded in context. Or maybe there’s nothing he can do, and he’ll just have to own up to the fact that he sublets a room formerly used for student housing and is okay with it. They park on a cross street and hike up because he knows there won’t be a space in front of the house. 

Bard is very quiet beside him, walking just far enough away that their arms do not brush together, so Bofur finds himself drifting closer, skin tingling in anticipation. In stupid, hollow yearning. “Here she is,” he says as they round on the House of Durin, the gray paint chipping off and revealing dirty white beneath, the sheet hanging from the window flapping and lifting idly in the chilly wind. “Not much to look at.” 

“Very gothic,” Bard observes, shoving his hands into his pockets as Bofur gets his keys out. “Is it haunted?” 

“Sadly, no, unless you count the mournful wailing of King Diamond songs at three in the morning when my brother Bombur gets sad,” Bofur explains as he opens the door, sticking his head in and sniffing the air suspiciously to make sure it’s actually presentable. The house smells how it usually does: musty, dirty, layered. The faint notes of bong water and sweat are there if you really look for them, but mostly there’s an overlying blanket of bacon grease because thankfully someone is cooking in the kitchen while they blast a speed metal band that Bofur doesn’t recognize. He opens the door all the way and beckons for Bard to come inside. “Sorry in advance for the music and the shit all over the floor. Watch out for amp cords and whammy pedals.” 

They pick their way across the living room to the kitchen, and Bofur tries not to notice Bard noticing the mess, his gaze skittering over the floor and walls of the house, narrowed in what’s probably judgement. “Here’s the living room…we practice in here or the basement, usually. This is also where the sound system is, so it often serves as the heart of our parties.” 

“Wild parties, I’m sure,” Bard says noncommittally, kicking at a particularly tarry-looking stain on the carpet. 

“Sometimes,” Bofur admits, though he doesn’t like the implication. Bard is clearly _thinking_ things right now, but he doesn’t know _what_ things _,_ and he’s afraid to ask. He’s too tired, and today has been too weird. “Um. Here’s the kitchen,” he says then, gesturing vaguely to where Ori, Kili, and Kili’s tall redheaded girlfriend are all standing around drinking coffee, frying bacon, and arguing vehemently over whether or not tofu is plant or protein. 

“It’s a plant!” Ori declares, eyes wide and fingers clutched around a chipped mug that Nori stole from Amoeba that once had _Iron Maiden_ spelled out on it in red. But most of the letters are all worn off now, and it just says _ron ma d_. “It’s a _bean!_ It comes from a _soybean_ , which is a plant!” 

“Yeah, but _beans_ are also protein!” Kili very nearly shouts back as he violently scrapes some burnt bacon off the bottom of the frying pan with a spatula. It’s a metal spatula, and Bilbo would absolutely _eviscerate_ him if he witnessed such a travesty. Kili is not wearing a shirt, and the burner is clearly too high, so little droplets of oil are splattering out onto his stomach and making him hiss and jump and curse. Nothing about the scene will serve Bofur in his mission to make his life seem less gross and childish than it is, but he’s already in too deep. He can’t back out now. 

“I realize this is perhaps difficult for you two to understand,” Kili’s girlfriend says from where she’s seated upon the counter wearing nothing but underwear and one of Kili’s faded, oversized Sabbath t-shirts, “But things can be _both_ plants _and_ protein.” 

“Noooo they can’t, meat is protein and beans are plants,” Ori says very authoritatively. 

“Bofur!” Kili says as soon as he sees him. “We need you to settle a score.” 

“And you need to put clothes on and turn the burner down, Jesus,” he says, stepping in and doing it for him, wincing as the oil spits at him, landing on his wrist and burning. “There.” 

“Who’s this?!” Killi asks then as he sees Bard, who is lingering just a few feet outside the kitchen, a safe distance away from the bacon pan disaster, his face a very difficult-to-discern mask. There is so much withheld in the lines framing his mouth, and it makes Bofur’s stomach tighten nervously. 

“That’s Bard. He’s my. Hmm. I work for him,” Bofur says awkwardly, feeling himself color as he steps back to stare at the floor and wipe oil on his jeans. There are a bunch of tiny red spots on his arm now, and he hopes they won’t blister. 

“Hi. I’m Bofur’s _friend_ ,” Bard says with emphasis, offering a hand for everyone to shake. “And you are?” 

“Oh god, m’awful at this stuff,” Bofur realizes, shaking his head. “I haven’t introduced you! Bard, this is Ori, our resident DnD expert and _Game of Thrones_ fan, and Kili, one of Thorin’s nephews and the biggest Sabbath fan you’ll ever meet, and then his girlfriend…Tori?” 

“Tauriel,” she corrects, waving from the counter.

“Tauriel, okay, sorry about that,” he says, repeating it mostly to get used to the syllables in his mouth. “And sorry, mates, she’s right. Tofu is both made from a plant _and_ a protein.” 

Ori and Kili gasp, very clearly affronted and betrayed as Tauriel smiles a smile that is both smug _and_ relieved. “Bard didn’t get a chance to vote,” Kili interrupts, pointing at him with an oil-drippy spatula. “What say you, friend of Bofur?” 

“Terribly sorry, but I’m with your girl,” he says as he reaches out and easily hooks a thumb into Bofur’s belt loop, like that's a thing you just _do_. “It’s both.” 

Bofur’s fucking heart up and quits in his chest. He never anticipated in a _million years_ that Bard would just _touch_ him right here in the kitchen in front of his friends, and he’s caught _so_ very off guard, he doesn’t even react in an observable way, frozen and breathless, panic-stricken and bizarrely _proud_ at the same time, since part of him cravesany indication that Bard is not ashamed of him or his life. The feelings cancel each other out and leave his body numb, but it doesn’t even really _matter_ how he reacts because Kili and Ori are too busy verbally lunging at each other's throats again while Tauriel rolls her eyes and refills her coffee. Bard’s hand falls away, and Bofur sucks in a sudden breath before coughing. “Well. So much for score settling. Bye guys.” Then he turns on his heel and gestures for Bard to follow him toward the stairs. “Come on, I’ll show you my room. We can leave these fools in peace.” 

On the stairwell, Bard brushes the back of his hand gently against Bofur’s thigh. “So you live like this?” he asks. His voice is tight. Not angry or bitter so much as profoundly _tired,_ thin in the way a very old, worn shirt is. Still, it makes Bofur’s heart trip painfully in embarrassment. 

“Like what?” he asks, though he knows. There was a _reason_ he kept his job nannying for Bard (and whatever came with it) separate from the House of Durin. They don’t fit together, a child’s well-loved wooden puzzle and the neat, crisp, small, uniform cuts of a 1,000-piece jigsaw. He never _belonged_ in Bard’s life, not really. He was playing a part because it felt so good to stand beside a man like him and feel like they were sharing something. He knows, now, how foolish that was. 

“Like this,” Bard mumbles, gesturing to the gaping maw of the hallway they pass as they continue to climb, to where the wallpaper is peeling away to reveal drywall, and there are water stains on the ceiling. “Like…I don’t know. A college student with other college students.” 

“Only a _few_ of them are college students…Ori and Kili, who you met, and then Kili’s brother Fili. Bilbo and Thorin are in grad school, but the rest of us are all in our thirties and forties. Some are even older, I think Balin is pushing sixty something, I don’t know,” Bofur rambles, knowing full well that this is beside the point. Bard doesn’t mean _literally_ with college students, he means with _people who have no direction._ People who live day to day, gig to gig, paycheck to paycheck, kicking around just to play another show and throw another party and drink another six-pack. And there’s nothing _wrong_ with this life, he knows that. He’s spent his whole adulthood defending it and rejecting anything else in favor of that defense. But for the first time in forever, he wishes he could shed it like a snakeskin and wear something nicer, neater, older, _cleaner._ Something like the dress-shirts he presses with an iron before he hangs them in Bard’s closet. 

_“_ I’m just surprised, I guess,” Bard says, shrugging and leaning against the wall, gripping the banister that has gum stuck to it in at least ten different places. Bofur stares at the dirty spots of mint-green and off-white, tongue pressed into his cheek. “You keep _my_ house so clean,” he adds.

Bofur reels back, a little defensive. “Well, it’s not like I have much time for housekeeping _here_ ,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “Plus, I share it with twelve other guys, I’m not their maid.” 

Bard frowns and turns away from him to climb the last several stairs to the landing, so his back is turned when he says, “You don’t want to move out and live—live somewhere else, someday? You’re going to be forty.” 

Bofur’s blood ices over, his breath stops. _Of course,_ he’d like to live somewhere else. A mansion in France. A cabin in Big Sur. A houseboat. Bard’s one-story in South Berkeley, which he keeps much cleaner than the House of Durin. Where he spends several nights a week spooning a warm body in a king-sized bed, wishing he could call both the body _and_ the bed his own. “I don’t know,” he lies, shoving his hands in his pockets and making fists there in the trappings of denim fiercely enough that his nails dig into the skin of his palms and carve little half-moons into the skin. “It keeps me young, living here.” _I’d move in, if you ever asked me to. I’d pay you rent. I’d play with your hair every night like your wife did, if you only let me._ Bofur doesn't say anything of the sort, though, because he _knows_ that’s not their dynamic, nor what it's destined to be. He knows he’s not a catch. Not successful, or rich, or handsome. Not the sort of thing widowers land on and keep. “Wait, hold up,” he says, rapping his knuckles on his door. “This is my room.” 

Bard spins on his heel to face him. “Do I get to see it?” he asks, arching a brow. 

“Sure. But just so you know, it’s not impressive,” Bofur mumbles as he turns the knob and lets them both in before shutting the door. He hadn’t bothered to make his bed this morning, so the sheets are rumpled and yesterday’s clothes are still on the floor, but save for that, it’s actually not too bad. He’s lucky Bard didn’t demand to see it in September, when it was still a perpetual wreck of laundry mountains and _Guitar World_ clippings. 

Bard looks around, his gaze skirting along the walls, the dresser, the guitars. He says nothing, and the silence is too much for Bofur, so he sits down on the edge of the bed, making a fist in his comforter, the other hand tapping an unsteady beat out on his own knee. _Told you so,_ he’s thinking about saying, but then Bard looks at him, mouth flattened into an unreadable line, eyes flashing flint-black. “So. Is this where you texted me from last night? Where you jacked off thinking about me?” 

Bofur sputters, fingers flexing, stomach swooping. “Um. Yes?” he admits, feeling his face heat up in shame, his guts tying themselves up in knots. “Is that—,” _a problem?_ gets lost to the slick, sudden press of Bard’s mouth. He knocks Bofur’s hat off with one hand and tangles it in his hair, the other pressing wide and hot to his chest as he pushes him backward onto the bed, climbs atop him, and grinds into him. His mouth is burning and sharp, teeth in every one of his kisses, which are frantic, feverish, _desperate._ Bofur can hardly keep up. He steadies himself by rubbing clammy hands up and down Bard’s back, kneading into the muscle framing either side of his spine, wondering what the fuck is happening and why, even though he’s not in a position to _complain_ or anything. This is so much fucking better than worrying if he’s in trouble. It’s better than feeling like he’s about to be dumped by his not-boyfriend, better than obsessing over every little stain and cobweb and dent in the wall like they say something about his own worth. 

He whimpers into Bard’s mouth, cants his hips up to meet him. “What the fuck,” he murmurs as Bard pulls away, mouthing fiercely down his throat. “I thought you were mad at me.” 

“I told you, I wasn’t,” Bard murmurs into his pulse, eyes shut and brow furrowed, mouth the wettest thing, bleeding like a wound. “I’m not.” 

Bofur wavers under the scrape of Bard’s incisors as he makes his way down, kissing his chest over his shirt before rucking it up to lick over his stomach, hands fumbling at the fastenings of his belt. “Shit,” Bofur says, cupping the back of Bard’s skull, heart pounding because he can’t fucking fathom that he’s dropping to his knees right now, shouldering out of his jacket, thumb pushing into Bofur’s unzipped flies. He can’t process any of this. His body is ten steps ahead of him, though, cock already getting hard, breath tight and sweat beading in the ditches of his elbows as he stares down through the haze at Bard’s dark head, the strands of gray-streaked dark tucked behind his ears. “You’re beautiful,” he says, even if he’s trying to bite his tongue. “Most fucking beautiful thing.” 

“Stop,” Bard says fiercely, biting the inside of his thigh. It’s not enough to really hurt, but the threat of pain is a tight, visible thing living in the tension of his jaw. Bofur thumbs over it, stunned. “Don’t say anything. Just let me make you come.” 

Bofur chews the inside of his cheek to shut himself up. Then he falls backward onto the bed in a mess of static as Bard kisses his legs through the rips in his jeans, mouth soft amid the scrape of his stubble. 

It’s a weird blowjob. 

It’s very _good,_ of course, because Bard is objectively good at blowjobs. It’s just not how such things _usually_ go. He’s quiet and focused, and he grips Bard’s hips so tightly that it feels like there might be bruises there in the shape of his fingers tomorrow. Most of the time, they _laugh_ during sex. They’re clumsy and breathless, and Bofur usually gets to look into Bard’s eyes and see that even if he is not _technically_ smiling because his mouth is full of cock, he’s smiling _on the inside,_ there are lines framing his eyes as his thumbs move so sweetly over the jut of Bofur’s hip bones, as if beneath the stretch of his skin he’s made from pearl.But Bard won’t even look at him this time. His eyes are shut tight for the duration, a deep line through his brow and his cheeks hollowed out as he sucks deep and hard, lashes dual slices of wet black against the cut of his cheekbones like reeds in the current of a river. He doesn't tease at all, he brings Bofur off fast and determined as he makes himself come in his own hand, pulling off to choke out a curse into the bunch of Bofur’s jeans around his thighs, spilling over his fist and onto the floor. And there he remains: on his knees with his face pressed to the inside of Bofur’s thigh as he smooths his trembling palms down the outside. 

“Damn,” Bofur mumbles at the ceiling, wondering if he’s allowed to talk now. “Too bad Thorin and Bilbo aren’t home. We could have been really loud. Given them a run for their money.” 

Bard laughs against his skin, though it comes out as more of a sob. His breath is hot and damp, and Bofur lets himself reach down and brush his fingers over the softness of his hair where it curls gently at his temples, watching the fog creep closer through his bedroom window. 

—-

It turns out Bilbo and Thorin actually _are_ home. Or, they return mid-blowjob, so after Bofur zips up and rolls over on his bed to catch his breath, he can _hear_ Bilbo shouting about the metal spatula on the teflon-coated pan all the way from downstairs. “Oh hey, speak of the devil,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to dispel the encroaching static. “There they are.” 

Bard stands with a weary unsteadiness and grabs a tissue from Bofur’s bedside to clean up. Then he finger-combs his hair back into place, eyes narrowed as he studies himself in the dusty mirror over the dresser. Bofur cranes his head up to watch him from the bed, chest aching, every inhalation stopping short like he’s bruised a rib in a mosh pit. Or had his heart broken. They’re both old, familiar sensations, and he rubs a palm from navel to Adam's apple like he might be able to _touch_ the hurt, frowning when he can’t. He’s realizing that he and Bard usually don’t just— _stop_ _touching_ after getting off. They stay tangled up in a puzzle of limbs, kissing, joking, talking about the day. Bofur’s gotten _used_ to being able to map out Bard’s chest with his hands, count the ribs, thumb into the flex of muscle over his scapula where he gets tightest from lifting crates of milk and veggies off the delivery truck once a week. It feels _wrong,_ to look at him from a distance when he _knows_ what his salt-and-pepper beard stubble looks like up close and in hyper detail. 

“Are you going to smuggle me out the window or let me meet them?” Bard asks, meeting Bofur’s eyes in the mirror as he takes his hair down from the elastic and ties it back up more neatly. 

“Of course you can meet them,” Bofur says, voice sharp with reproach. He makes a face at Bard until the darkness of his eyes cuts away, skimming the perimeter of the mirror instead of gazing into it. Making his unreadable stare falter provides Bofur with an odd, pitiful sort of satisfaction. “They’re going to give you a hard time.” 

“I think I’ll manage,” Bard says, somewhat coldly. 

Bofur supposes that’s his cue to get up and take Bard downstairs for more introductions. It feels wrong, though, every movement stiff with unsaid words, a whole monologue choked up in his throat. Or maybe not a monologue… an argument. A confrontation. He swallows it down, grimacing like it’s cough syrup. “All right,” he says with false cheer, clapping his hands together and vaulting up off the bed. “Let’s go meet the lads.” 

Bard follows him out the door and down the stairs, dark like a shadow, quiet like a ghost. Bofur plasters on a smile even though there’s no one to see it. 

That is, until he rounds the corner and finds Thorin sitting on the couch, hovering in the living room while Bilbo emphatically lectures Kili and Ori in the kitchen. “Bofur,” he says, nodding to him. “I thought you were working today.” 

“Oh,” Bofur mumbles. “Well. I was. But then my car broke down and I was stranded at an elementary school forever texting everyone in the house until Bard chivalrously came to my rescue,” he awkwardly explains, side-stepping to the left of the staircase so that he’s not blocking Bard. He’s _already_ sick with regret, though, eyes wide and pleading as they lock with Thorin’s across the room. _Don’t you fucking say anything,_ he silently begs. _Don’t fuck this up any more than I already have._

Thorin stares, and the whole room feels mired in icy blue. “Bard,” Thorin says carefully, nodding, his grip white-knuckled on the water bottle he’s holding. The plastic of it dimples under his painted nails. “Your—”

“Employer,” Bard supplies, holding out a hand. “You must be Thorin. I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

They vigorously shake hands, and Bofur feels like his lungs are fucking collapsing as he watches. The whole afternoon is running away with him. It’s turned around and yanked the reins from his hand, taken the bit between its teeth, and _charged_ off a fucking cliff.If he thought he had an idea of what was happening between him and Bard before this, it’s shattered now. It’s nothing but dust. The painful, dangerous stuff that comes from the inside of fluorescent bulbs once they’ve been crushed. “And I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bard replies. His smile is so charming, and Bofur has never felt sad about that, but he does now, helplessly stuck there at the foot of the stairs, watching his life play out in slow motion like it’s on a film reel.

“I hope they’re all good things,” Thorin says, nodding cordially, even though there’s something very tight in his jaw. It likely would not be obvious to a stranger, but Bofur can _tell_ that Thorin is positively _thrumming_ with the exertion of holding back some embarrassing, lewd, telling jab. Bofur can see it in the tilt of his eyebrows, the corners of his almost-smiling mouth. He wants to make a butt-sex joke. He’s _thinking_ about it. Bofur stares at him emphatically, shooting daggers with his eyes, but luckily, Thorin releases Bard’s hand without incident, gaze flashing. “Bilbo!” he calls, both syllables of the name coming out sharp and pointed. “Bofur’s _employer_ is here.”

“ _What_?!” Bilbo squeaks as he skates in on socked feet, eyes wide, hair frazzled. He looks like he came directly from class after pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper, which checks out because Bofur is pretty sure he resigned himself to homework after _The Sound of Music_ ended. “Oh! Oh my goodness. God. Wow. Hello,” he says then, shooting an overwhelmed look at Bofur as he enthusiastically shakes Bard’s hand. _Better in person. Terribly handsome. Why the fuck are you sleeping on marriage, Maria?!_ is written all over his face, and Bofur cannot in _any_ way respond to those terrible layers of judgement and inquiry, so he just shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets, staring at Bilbo like he might be able to incinerate him with the power of his gaze, lips pursed into the most forced, tight-lipped smile. He thought the _blowjob_ was surreal, but this is truly one thousand times worse. “What on earth are you two doing here?!” Bilbo asks, rolling onto the balls of his feet after the handshake, which goes on entirely too long, finally ends. “I thought Bofur was _never_ going to bring you over to meet us, and here you are!” 

“Funny, I thought he was never going to bring me around _either,”_ Bard says, eyebrows lifting cynically. “I had to bully him into it.” 

“I’m in no way a religious man, but thank _god_ for the bullying, it’s truly wonderful to meet, well, Bofur’s... Um—the _person—,_ ” Bilbo suddenly shuts up because Thorin steps on his foot with his steel-toed boot, effectively cutting him off, for which Bofur is grateful. 

“We’re just happy to meet you,” Thorin says nodding to Bard. “Are you guys staying or do you have plans? Do you want to go out and get food or something?” he asks, looking somewhat hopeful, which is—it’s nice, actually. It makes Bofur feel warm with gratitude for a second, a much needed respite from the edging panic that's been plaguing him all morning. He wishes today was, like, a _normal day_ so that he could actually take Thorin up on the offer, but it’s not. He doesn't know if they’re staying. He doesn't know if they have plans. He’s totally in the fucking dark. 

“Dunno, what do you think?” he asks Bard, wishing he could, like—touch him. Hip check him, lay his palm on the lowermost dip of his back where his shirt bunches above the waistband of his jeans. He loves thumbing over those dimples, kissing them when they’re in bed. He fucking loves everything about Bard, and he’s probably gonna lose him because he’s too _scared_ to just _ask him_ what the fuck is going on. So. He doesn’t reach out, he just continues to clench his hands in his pockets instead, until his fingers are locked up and numb.

“I’d like to get home and shower at the house before I pick up the kids,” Bard says to Bofur with a sigh, mouth twisting into a strangled, apologetic half-smile. “I should get going.” Then he turns back to Bilbo and Thorin and smiles, the cut of it brash and beautiful. Like nothing is wrong at all. “It really was wonderful to meet you. Maybe we can actually spend some time together properly sometime soon. Thank you for having me in your home.” He gently, briefly brushes his knuckles over Bofur’s wrist. “Bye. I’ll text you.” 

Then he’s walking to the fucking _front door,_ and Bofur is standing there with his heart in his throat, his eyes burning. 

It’s not until the screen slams on its hinges behind Bard’s retreating back that it fully registers to Bofur that he’s actually _leaving_. “Wait!” he sputters, abandoning Thorin and Bilbo without an explanation to leap over the couch and skid out the door after Bard. He busts out into the fog and catches him halfway down the sidewalk, grabbing his wrist so that he turns around, hair nearly whipping Bofur in the face. “Wait!” he says again as he lets go, doubling over with his hands braced on his knees, panting. He feels like he’s choking on the fucking fog, but worse than that, he cannot stomach the darkness of Bard’s gaze. The way it’s hardened over, like ice freezing on the top of a lake. “ _Jesus_ you walk fast. God. What the fuck,” he mumbles. 

Bard stands there without moving or speaking until Bofur makes himself stand up and look at him again. “I thought—I didn’t realize you were, like. Heading out. I can go get the kids if you need a break, or if—”

“No, it’s fine,” Bard sighs, scrubbing his hands over his cheeks, shaking his head before his gaze skirts up to the reflective white-gray of the sky. “I’m off, you know. I might as well.” 

The silence feels endless and suffocating. Bofur shuffles on the pavement, skin crawling, and then…he just can’t take it anymore. “Bard, what the fuck is going on?” he blurts, voice torn, wobbling with vulnerability, which feels—well, it feels fucking _awful._ It makes him want to shut off and stop feeling things all together, but he manages to swallow the urge down long enough to sputter out, “Why are you just—is my house really _that_ fucking gross? I _know_ it's messy and the guys are sort of disasters sometimes and there’s always loud music, that’s all true, sure, but like. You just sort of get used to it, after awhile and—”

Bard touches him without warning, a sweet, warm brush of his fingers down the outside of his forearm, and it makes Bofur’s voice curl up and die in his throat. “Your house isn't that bad and your roommates were really nice,” he says, thumbing into the ditch of Bofur’s elbow right there on the slant of the sidewalk before shoving his hand back into his own pocket after a tempered flex of his fingers. Bofur stares, wishing so badly that Bard would keep touching him, at the same time _knowing_ it’s not something he could ask for. He wouldn’t know _how._ “A little young, maybe, but good guys. I can tell.” 

Bofur lets out a breath he hardly realized he was holding. “ _What_ then? What did I do?” 

Bard won’t look at him. First, he looks at his feet, the splay of his worn-out leather hipster boots on the cracked cement. Then his gaze sweeps across the street to lock on the sprawling brick frat house on the corner, where there’s a unicorn floaty half-deflated on the dead, yellow stretch of the lawn and a literal tower of empty beer cans sitting on the porch. “You didn't do anything,” he says eventually. “I just—I’m starting to think we want different things.” 

It sinks like a weighted fishing lure in Bofur’s gut, snagging and tearing along the way until he feels like there’s some internal fucking bleeding going on. He sucks in an inhalation, pulse pounding in his ears. “Okay,” he says, voice still weak, shaky. “What does that mean?” 

“It means—,” Bard cuts himself off with a sigh, squeezing his tired eyes shut as he grimaces, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. It’s easier to look at him when his eyes are closed so Bofur drinks the sight up, breath coming sharp and fast, heart ricocheting in his chest because, _god,_ he doesn’t want to lose this. He doesn’t want to lose Bard. But he’s pretty sure he already _has,_ somehow, and he doesn’t even know _why. “_ It means that I feel like I’m getting very carried away, with you,” Bard mumbles out. And not a single word of that clarifies things for Bofur, but he swallows anyway, nodding, trying to process it. Trying to be okay with whatever Bard needs as long as it means he gets to _keep_ him somehow. Even if it’s just little fragments of him, slivers and crumbs. 

“Carried away,” Bofur repeats, still nodding. He’s like the goddamned cat bobble head in the window of the veterinary office in Piedmont that Tilda always wants to pause to look at when they take walks through Mountain View Cemetery. “What, like—with the sex…and the sexy text messages?”

Bard’s gaze flashes to Bofur, and he smiles a smile that is so broken open it hurts to look at. It’s wild, and awed, and bleeding. So is the short laugh that comes out over it before he covers his face in his palm. “No, it’s not—it’s everything,” he grinds out, voice muffled from beneath his palm. The overwhelm in it makes Bofur’s stomach sink, his lips purse into a flat, defensive line. He’s been trying _so_ hard to not expect too much from Bard. To not fall into this too hard, too deeply, but it’s becoming clear to him that he’s fucked that up, and fucked it up _bad._ He isn’t just expecting too much, he _is_ too much. And he’s fallen so damn hard that he has no idea how to get up. “I think I just need a few days to get my head on straight. To think about things,” Bard says, rubbing his hand over his mouth, brow furrowed. “Will you give me that? Is that alright?” 

And Bofur would give Bard anything, so he nods, frowning. “Of course. You call me when you figure shit out and when—I dunno. When you need me to take care of the kids.” 

Bard inhales long and trembling. “Alright,” he says then, nodding to himself. He reaches out again and squeezes Bofur’s arm. “I will. You take care of yourself,” he adds, like this is goodbye, like it's an end. Like this is terminal, which Bofur fucking _knew._ He’s always known. 

Still, it hurts so fucking _much_ to realize it all over again. To feel the acute effects of it, making him bleed like shrapnel embedded in his skin after an explosion. Bard starts down the sidewalk to his car, and Bofur refuses to watch him go because he’s pretty sure he would break down and cry right here in the street if he did, so. He stares at the half-deflated unicorn floaty instead, chewing the inside of his cheek raw, listing the names of all the beer brands in the can-tower across the street until Bard disappears into his car and drives away. 

_Then_ he breaks down and cries right there in the fucking street. 

—-

Bofur returns to the House of Durin all red-eyed and swollen and pitiful. His throat hurts, his chest hurts, and he didn’t really remember crying _hurting_ so much, but he probably did it wrong. It was all choked-up and weird and stilted anyway, the tears stuck in his eyes, his chest tight and gasping as it battled him, every single sob, trying to force it back down and replace it with frantic laughter. He actually doesn’t even _know_ the last time he cried, maybe his body is out of practice or something. 

He secretly hopes the living room is empty, and Bilbo and Thorin _especially_ have stolen away to one of their rooms to fuck so he doesn’t have to explain himself, but alas, they’re almost exactlywhere he left them: piled onto the couch with their legs tangled, no doubt _gossiping_ about him and Bard. 

Bilbo hears the door shut and scrambles to his feet. His smile falls the moment he sees Bofur, who manages to hide his face in his hat, though clearly not quickly enough. “Oh _no,”_ Bilbo says, gripping Bofur’s elbows in his hands as he steers him to the couch. “What happened?! What did you do?” 

“Ughhh,” Bofur says, collapsing onto the couch, kicking his legs up, boots and all, onto the cushions. He might kick Thorin a little in the process, but he thinks that’s alright. Desperate times and all that. “I don’t even _know!”_ he admits, throwing his arms up dramatically, hat still obscuring his face, muffling his voice. “I really don’t. I just... I need a stiff drink.” 

“Dwalin has some gin,” Thorin says, patting his knee. “I’ll pour you some.” 

“Will you?! No, I’ve got it, love,” Bilbo says, reaching out and smoothing his hand down Thorin’s thick forearm reassuringly before he hurries into the kitchen. Bofur watches the exchange happen through the very small window he’s allowed himself below the brim of his hat, and he wishes he hadn't seen it. They’re too cute. Too sweet. It makes him want a hundred things he can’t have. It makes him wish _he_ was Bard’s boyfriend, so he could know every tiny, silly thing that might upset him and take care of it himself because that’s what you do, when you’re in love. When you’re in a relationship. He whimpers, inhaling unsteadily. 

Thorin is patting his leg rhythmically, and it's making him a little nauseous given how forced and tense it is. Still, he appreciates it. He knows it’s well intentioned, after all. It’s just that he and Thorin have never really _had_ the sort of friendship where they, like, _take care of each other_ or act as a shoulder for the other to cry on. In fact, apparently _everyone_ in the house already knew that Thorin was in love with Bilbo before they got together, save for Bofur, because he just—wasn’t close enough with Thorin to be confided in, or to pick up on the telltale signs. It makes Thorin’s very awkward attempts to comfort him all the more kind, even if they’re a little misguided. 

Bilbo rushes back with his drink, the ice clinking against the mason jar as he hands it off. “It’s as strong as I could justify making a gin cocktail at…,” he checks his phone. “One in the afternoon.” 

“Jesus,” Bofur mumbles as he sits up enough to take a deep, meaningful sip and swallow with a wince. “Is it only one?! Fucking _fuck._ What a day.” 

“ _What happened!?”_ Bilbo asks, practically vibrating with how badly he wants to know. “Thorin and I were _just sitting here_ talking about how lovely he seems, but we—or _I—_ could tell there was something going on. Some sort of tension.” 

“I just thought you guys had just finished fucking,” Thorin says, shrugging. “And that’s why it was tense.” 

“I hate that you’re both right,” Bofur grumbles, coughing down more of his drink. He hasn’t eaten anything today, so it’s going right to his head, making him dizzy and hot already, the world soft-edged in a way that he feels he can actually fucking manage. “We _had_ just fucked. But that was weird, too, if m’honest. And then—then he just told me he wanted a few days to sort things out. I’m pretty sure that’s what you say when you’re about to fire your babysitter _and_ dump his ass.” 

“Oh Bofur,” Bilbo says sympathetically, sitting on the floor beside the couch since there’s no room for him, save for atop Thorin’s lap, and he’s considerate enough to know that it’s probably not the best time for such things. “I’m so sorry. Did he say _why?_ Give any explanation?” 

Bofur gets an ice cube in his mouth and crunches it. “Yeah,” he says once he’s swallowed most of the shattered bits. “I mean, _sort of._ He said he, um, was getting carried away with everything? And oh, that we _wanted_ _different things._ Which, like—fuck me, I know. I told you, it’s _not_ a Maria von Trapp situation. ” 

“Shit,” Bilbo murmurs, patting his arm. “Did you tell him? That you love him and, like—wanted it to be more serious?”

“No! I didn’t! I _wouldn’t_ , I’m too fucking worried of this _exact_ _thing_ happening to just _say_ it like that,” Bofur groans, taking another head-spinning gulp of his drink before flopping back onto the couch, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “He can probably just _tell.”_

 _“_ Okay—wait,” Bilbo says, making a face and shooting a look at Thorin. They meet eyes in a weird, tacit agreement that makes Bofur’s scalp prickle. “You didn't tell him what you wanted…did you _ask_ him what _he_ wanted?” 

“No,” Bofur mumbles, pressing his tongue into his cheek. 

“ _Bofur_!”Bilbo snaps, the gentle pressure of his arm turning into a sharp, punishing pinch. 

“Ow!” Bofur snaps, wrenching away. “Look! I don’t know how to talk! I can’t talk to him! I’m freaked out that no matter what I say I’ll just send him running to the fucking hills, _not_ the ones that are alive with the sound of music but, like, the metaphorical ones where he never talks to me again! I can’t just _ask_ him shit point-blank!” 

“He’s running for the hills anyway,” Thorin offers very dryly, which sucks because as much as Bofur wants to kick him for it, he sort of has a point. “He’s pulling away because you won’t be honest about your feelings.” 

“There are more poetic ways to put it,” Bilbo says from the floor, shrugging. “But it’s true.” 

Bofur taps the cold mason jar of gin and soda against his cheek, the condensation from the ice wetting his skin. It’s an oddly comforting and grounding sensation, and he focuses on it for a few seconds before sighing and saying, “Okay, well what do I say then? He’s asked for space. I feel like I should probably give it to him. Like, I’d just be an asshole confessing everything _right_ after he’s specifically asked me to leave him alone.” 

“Okay, wait until he reaches out again, then! Respect his boundary but know that you can’t just _keep_ loving him and never saying anything about it. That won’t work.” Bilbo says. 

“It won’t? I bet I could make it work,” Bofur slurs, already feeling quite drunk. He’s chugged the majority of his drink in, like, five minutes, anyway. 

“No, you cannot,” Bilbo assures him, wrinkling up his nose and taking Bofur’s glass from him right before he loses his grip and spills the remaining ice all over himself. “Also, I’m going to get you some water and a piece of toast. Jesus.” 

He leaves, and Bofur kicks out a leg over Thorin’s thighs, gazing at him with narrowed, bleary eyes. “You were good to stop drinking. That was a good idea,” he murmurs. 

Thorin ignores him. “You know how Bilbo and I finally figured our shit out?” he asks, making a fist and rapping his knuckles on Bofur’s boot. 

“How?” he asks, even though he doesn’t _really_ want to know. He thinks it had something to do with a bar fight. He thinks this might be a lecture about using substances as coping mechanisms, and he really _does_ not need that from a guy who’s not even thirty. He also doesn’t want to think about the White Horse because it’ll just make him think about Bard, which will make him _cry_ again. 

Thorin ends up surprising him, though. “I told him I was in love with him. I said it just like that. _I’m in love with you._ And I thought he might hit me, or at the very least, I’d lose him as a friend, that he’d move out and we’d never talk again. But I had to risk all that because even if there was a .00001 chance he might feel the same way, I needed to try,” he says. There’s rawness to his voice, something dark in the blue of his eyes. Bofur’s not sure he’s ever seen Thorin like this—not just sincere but _raw._ Scraped open and weeping lymph. It’s almost sort of scary. “And you know what happened?” 

“You guys boink every day in our communal showers?” Bofur says with a grin that’s positively _dripping_ in layers of defense and self-recrimination. 

It’s Thorin’s turn to pinch him, this time fairly high up on the inside of his leg, which is actually really fucking painful. Bofur yelps, jerking away from his grip. “What _happened_ ,” Thorin says fiercely, eyes flashing, “is me getting to marry the love of my life, someday. So, if you care about your _soul_ and this man and your potential future together, I suggest you find some strength in yourself to _tell him.”_

It’s almost threatening in its gravity, but that’s sort of how Thorin rolls, so Bofur tries to accept it, even though his body battles him every step of the way. He _hates_ the idea of telling Bard how he feels. He even _hates_ the idea of, like, caring about his own soul. It’s a lot of pressure, but he _knows_ it’s what he has to do. Because when push comes to shove, he _does_ love Bard. And he _does_ want to be with him. He wants to marry the love of _his_ life someday, too. Even though he hardly believes he’s the sort of person who deserves happy endings or _gets_ life-long loves in the first place. He’s just the funny side character, the comic-relief stoner guy who dies last in the horror movie, but he still _dies._

 _“_ Fine,” he says, carding a hand messily through his hair as Bilbo arrives with a piece of buttered rye and a tall glass of water with no ice for Bofur to crunch because Bilbo hates ice-crunchers. “I’m pretty sure he just soft-broke up with me, but I’ll work on, like. Scripting the speech where I tear my heart out for him, too.” 

Bilbo smiles, and pats his head like a dog. “That’s the spirit.” 


	11. Out of the Fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god guys, here it is. I'm sorry this chapter took so long, in my defense it's OVER 12K, so, it was a mission to write and also to edit, I'm sure. We FINALLY get some communication and resolution in this chapter and It was very satisfying to write (and hopefully to read, too!!!) 
> 
> Thank you all for going on this journey with me and enduring it while I put these guys through hell. I promise things will be pretty fluffy rom here on out!
> 
> Also huge thank you to my editor team for making such good time and quick turn around on this massive chapter!!! Jen and Pie, you make my life ten times easier. 
> 
> OK GUYS HAVE FUN DIVE IN!!

Two days pass, and Bofur’s phone becomes a problem. 

Whenever he sees it lying on his desk or feels the familiar shape of it in his pocket as he sits down, he just _wants to text Bard._ Not _always_ about what’s going on between them, though he’s definitely drafted a million heartfelt confessions in his brain, versions of _I miss you so fucking bad I can’t think straight, I miss the kids, I miss your slow-cooker, I miss your smile, I miss your sheets. Please come back, let_ me _come back, let me figure this out with you, I’m finally ready this time._ Occasionally, he’ll even go so far as to type these messages up before erasing the whole thing instead of hitting send, deleting the words letter by letter like a serpent eating its own tail. Most of the time it’s more reflexive than that, though. He just wants to send Bard stupid, pointless things fifty times a day because that’s what you _do_ when you’re in love. So many fucking things _remind_ him of Bard. Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald songs, especially the duets with Louis Armstrong. His favorite brand of scotch. BART ads for the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Bofur will see a tiny, resilient volunteer tomato plant poking its head out of the cracked pavement on the patio, even though it’s November and it can’t possibly survive, snap a picture, and have to _stop_ himself from sending it to Bard with the caption _look! sad dumbfuck plant :(_

In this scenario, Bofur is actually the sad dumbfuck plant. Trying his hardest to grow, striving toward meager rays of sunlight, only to inevitably be beaten down by his own bad timing, by too much fog. 

It’s extra painful because he keeps _forgetting_ they’re not talking and will actually, physically slide his phone from his pocket and open up a text window before the reality hits him square in the face, nearly knocking him over. Apparently, walking around with a nameless dread in his gut all day isn't enough. Bofur is disassociating away from the pain so much that he can’t even keep what happened in his _head._ He has to keep reminding himself, breaking his own heart, twisting his own stomach up like his intestines are on a barbed spit. It’s the absolute _worst,_ really. He’ll feel distantly sick and lonely, want to reach out to Bard because he loves him and texting him about nothing always soothes the ache of his existential dread, and then remember Bard’s the fucking _reason_ he feels this way in the first place. It’s terrible to only want to text the one person you can’t. It’s terrible when the person you need most, the person who makes you _feel_ better, is the same person who asked for space and doesn't _want_ to talk to you. 

He’s a mess of revelations, and re-revelations, and memories, and _re-_ memories. 

The first day, he deletes the sexy selfies and pornographic video Bard sent him the other night. It feels weird and unethical to keep those when the guy in them is probably gonna break up with him at the end of the week. Still, it _hurts._ Erasing data. Already saying goodbye to things that were never really _his_ but sort of, like, _felt_ like they were his in fever-hot, reckless moments. 

The second day, he deletes their whole text history so that he’ll stop masochistically rereading old messages and splaying his hand over his heart like he might be able to mend the tears through layers of bone and flesh if he just fucking tries hard enough.

Needless to say, Bofur spends a lot of time stoned off his ass, alternating between crashing Bilbo and Thorin’s perpetual fuck-fest to cry on their shoulders, trying to play video games or music to distract himself, then crying anyway when it doesn’t work. It’s not a good look. 

He’s taking a weird, bad, groggy midday nap when Bard finally breaks radio silence. Bofur’s phone vibrates where it’s shoved under his pillow, and he fumbles around in his dirty sheets for a few minutes trying to locate the buzz, eyes scrunched shut and dreams still clinging to him like cobwebs. When he finds it, he unlocks the screen and opens it without thinking, and then _so suddenly,_ he’s very, very awake when he sees who the message is from. 

Stomach in knots, Bofur sits up and reads it ten times in ten different internal inflections, trying to detect meaning between the words like it might unlock the code of his own fucking misery. He comes up short, though. All he sees are stars, static, and wishes, not facts. _Hey. I got a sitter for the last few days, my neighbor’s daughter. she’s only a few years older than Sigrid and in WAY over her head. My house is falling apart. i need you. Can you come tomorrow morning?_ it reads. 

_Do you NEED me need me or just need me for childcare?_ Bofur types out before deleting it, letter by letter, as he has been doing for the last few days. Then he takes a deep breath. And another. He rubs his thumb over the oil-smudged screen of his phone as if he could reach through it and touch _Bard,_ whose skin he misses so much that he feels like he’s going insane. He thinks of Bain and how good he’s getting at fractions, Tilda and her new obsession with memorizing baseball stats even though she hates actually watching baseball, Sigrid and the increasingly intricate braid patterns she learns from videos online, leaning over the family desktop computer with her fingers buried in her hair, Dio playing quietly in the background like she thinks Bofur won’t notice. 

He fucking misses them, too. He sincerely wonders if Bard _does_ end the other-stuff part of their relationship, if he’ll terminate his employment, too, or if Bofur will be expected to keep sitting the kids. He’s not sure he’ll be able to actually _do_ that, but he _wants_ to. He can’t lose the whole family, alongside losing Bard. The mere thought makes him feel shaky and hot all over, and he rakes a hand through his hair, swallowing back a thick lump. 

He knows what he needs to do. He fucking _knows._ Bilbo and Thorin have told him at least several hundred times each in the last forty-eight hours with increasingly firm phrasing. It’s just— _doing_ it feels so impossible. He flops back into his pillows, noticing the way they smell like his own stale weed-sweat because he hasn’t been as good about laundry this week as he has in the weeks prior and wrinkling his nose in disappointment. His life is fucking _bleak_ without Bard to keep him motivated and functioning. He stares at his phone with hazy eyes and makes a face. 

He _knows_ what he needs to do, so he grits his teeth and just _does_ it, Bilbo and Thorin’s words echoing in his head in a loop. _He already is running, what do you have to lose?_ Still, his thumbs are clumsy and trembling as he types up _hey. i can come tomorrow. but like, can we talk? i’ll come early. i just really need to talk to you, about some things._

Bofur lies there for a long time after he sends it, heart pounding and face hot as he stares at his phone, willing Bard to respond. It doesn’t come right away, though, so he groans and drags himself out of bed to comb his hair, plunk his hat onto his head, and brush his teeth. Then he violently strips the bed, just to prove he really _can_ stay on top of his chores, even if he’s falling apart. Even if Bard doesn’t want him. Even if Bard is most _definitely_ going to break up with him tomorrow morning. He shakes his pillows out of the cases, trying his hardest to puzzle through the logistics of what it might look like to maintain a relationship with the kids at the same time he’s ending one with their dad. If he can even _call_ it that. 

When his phone buzzes again, he grabs it without missing a beat, blood rushing in his ears as he sinks down onto the floor atop his heap of dirty sheets to open the text with trembling fingers. _Yes, yes. of course. of course we can talk. I’ll see you early in the AM. I’ll be up._ the response reads. 

Bofur skims it countless times, hating that he can’t tell if he should laugh or cry. If he should work on generating a stupid little flame of hope or brace for the worst. Eventually, he settles on a pervasive numbness instead because that’s certainly the easier option at this point. Sighing heavily, he mechanically stands and hauls all his sheets to the basement in his hamper, throat stinging in anticipation, eyes prickling with things unshed. 

The day crawls along, and his fingers itch with the urge to say more. _By talk, i mean confess my possibly inappropriate and VERY possibly unreturned super serious feelings for you :(_ he types up and deletes. _I can’t stand this, i just have to say it: i think about marrying u and spending the rest of my life with you and stuff. i know this is an awful thing to say over text but like. i can’t look at your face when i say it, please don’t be mad_ he types up and deletes. _I think there might be something wrong with my brain sometimes_ he types up and deletes. _I love you, Bard. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did, and I just really, really love you._ He types up, deletes, types up again, and saves in his notes as a draft. _Just in case,_ he tells himself, hand in his pocket and thumb along the side of his phone, like it’s a gun and he’s ready to pull the trigger. 

Bofur is way too fucking nervous to sleep well that night. When he drifts off, he immediately jolts back awake out of half-dreams where he’s slept through his alarm, or where he gets stuck in morning traffic, or where he _does_ manage to make it to Bard’s in time to talk but can’t actually get the words he needs to say out of his throat, every single one lodged there and stinging like thorns. Some time before dawn, he eventually gives up on sleep and rolls out of his ( _clean,_ thank you very much) sheets to grudgingly get dressed and pad down the stairs in socks to make himself coffee. Grey light stalls and creeps over the jagged East Bay horizon just as he pours himself a mug, and so he goes out to his favorite camping chair on the patio to watch the sunrise. Though he mostly ends up staring at the sad, dumbfuck tomato plant the whole time, missing the orange-pink glow of the sky in favor of studying resilient little vines reaching from the crack in the pavement. 

He decides it’s weird, being up at dawn. Everything feels too real and not real enough at the same time. Like, there’s no one out here save for the mourning doves to witness him sipping his coffee, so does it even _matter_ if he cries? Does it _count_ as an honest-to-god cry at all if the only living creatures who hear the muffled sounds of it against his hoodie sleeve are birds? He thinks maybe not, but somehow that makes it easier to actually let go, so he does. He cries until his eyes are swollen and the tear-well inside him feels dried up and the sound of morning commute traffic starts to make him paranoid. Then, as suddenly and powerfully as it started, it’s over. He’s wrung out, empty like his coffee cup, which he drops off in the kitchen before he heads into the downstairs bathroom to rinse his face in the sink, blow his nose, and brush his teeth once more with the toothbrush he keeps down here for the nights when he’s been too drunk to make it up the stairs. It’s a years-old toothbrush, which is probably gross, but not as gross as not brushing his teeth before bed at all, which is how he’s reconciled its existence for so long, even though he always sort of wants to gag when he uses it. 

Luckily, he’s so exhausted from not sleeping and then crying his heart out to the sunrise that he hardly thinks about how old and germy the toothbrush probably is. Plus he has bigger problems, like how he looks as if he went through a fucking meat grinder or something, face blotchy, eyes red-rimmed. He stares at himself in the mirror and wonders when the last time he cried hard enough to _do_ that to himself was, and he realizes it was probably back when he was a kid. The same kid making himself sick on Three Musketeers bars, humming along to “Twilight of the Gods”in the remnants of half a Halloween costume. 

He’s not a kid anymore, though. Or a tomato plant. He’s an adult human man, and he really needs to suck it up and actually _fight_ for what he wants. He needs to be honest. He needs to learn how to _talk_ , no matter how insurmountably scary it seems. So he tugs on his Docs and laces them up, and then he walks to his car so that he can drive to South Berkeley and tell Bard that he fucking loves him. 

—-

Of course, that’s not at all how it ends up going. 

When Bofur arrives on Bard’s porch, he can’t get a word out if he _tries his damnedest._ His throat is closed, eyes wide as Bard opens the door and stands there to study him, gaze dark and guarded, face lined, mouth set in a defensive line. More than anything, he looks indescribably exhausted. Like he didn't sleep either. Like he spent the morning crying, too. It should _comfort_ Bofur, to see that Bard is in a similar state of disrepair as he is, but instead it just freezes every well-rehearsed word inside him, like a fist around his vocal chords. All he can do is stare, and _stare,_ and run his tongue over the inside of his clenched teeth and dream of kissing those troubled lips. 

That’s all Bofur wants to _do,_ really. Skip the talking part and just put Bard up against the wall, touch him all over with greedy palms, press his mouth to the shell of his ear, and telepathically tell him _I_ _love you, Bard. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did, and I just really, really love you,_ every word already saved and agonized over on his phone, immortalized in digital. Instead, he just stands there, swallowing repeatedly as they regard each other in silence. “Hi,” Bard says eventually, gaze cutting to the floorboards of the porch, the path from the steps to the welcome mat where the paint has been worn down to the wood’s grain. “Are you going to come in?” 

“Yes! Yeah. Of course. God. Sorry,” Bofur mumbles, shuffling over the threshold and into Bard’s living room, passing close enough to the drawn-tight, tempered warmth of his body that he can smell his shampoo, his deodorant, _him._ Whatever it is that specifically makes up the smell of a person. It’s dizzying, as usual, but also sort of heart-breaking this time because Bofur doesn’t want to lose it. He wants to fill his lungs with it every morning, he wants to sleep with his face buried in Bard’s hair or else under the weight of his arm. He takes a deep, shaky breath and tries to remind himself, _hey, you can do this. “_ Are the kids still asleep?” he asks, tugging anxiously at one of the flaps of his hat, gaze skirting over to Bard. 

“Yeah, for another twenty minutes,” he mumbles, rubbing at his brow. “Sorry—sorry about the time crunch.” 

“It’s alright,” Bofur promises, crossing his arms, wondering when is a good time to rip his heart free from its moorings in his chest and just, like, present it, fresh and bleeding. He feels like there’s never a good time to tell someone you’re in love with them, not when you’re about to turn forty, and you’re just some guy who’s been skidding along, freeloading in search of a good riff, a free beer, a fun gig your whole life. Bofur’s existence has never presented an opportunity for true, high romance, so he’s going to have to shoehorn it in somewhere, since it won’t naturally fit. “It’s—it’s fine. It’s just good. Um. To see you.” 

Bard sags a little, releasing some of the tension around his shoulders. “It’s good to see you, too,” he says gently, though he still won’t meet Bofur’s eyes. “We should talk in my room, just in case. Sound doesn’t travel as well from there as it does from the living room.” 

Then he’s brushing past Bofur and leading him down the hall, and everything is pulled taut like a tightrope, trembling with the exertion. Bofur grinds his teeth as he follows, brow already too-hot under his hat. Bard closes the door crisply behind them, then sits on the bed. “Hi,” he says again, shaking his head. “This is weird. I hate that it’s weird.” 

“Me, too,” Bofur agrees. “I’m all for it being not-weird as soon as humanly possible.” 

“Same. So, um, let’s get the pleasantries over with: how have you been?” Bard asks with mock formality, ducking his head in an almost-bow, lips pulling back to reveal a forced, frantic smile that disappears as soon as it flashes across his face. 

Bofur takes a deep breath, crossing his arms and widening his stance, heart rabbiting so hard in his ribcage that he’s worried Bard can hear. This is _it,_ though. This is the moment he’s been spending the last two days gearing up for, crying over, bracing against. This is his truth. “Um, I’m—,” he starts, laughing weakly after that and cutting his gaze to the carpet because, _god,_ it’s so fucking hard to flay his skin open like this. To just _say it plainly,_ without layers of self-deprecating humor and foolish optimism laid atop it to soothe the sting. “I’ve been a fucking mess, if I’m honest,” he admits, shaking his head. “I’ve missed you. I miss you so much. I’ve been driving myself crazy wondering what’s going on…what you’ve been thinking about. Took everything in me not to text you, begging to know.” 

Bard laughs, though it comes out more as a breathless wheeze. “I’ve been thinking about you, the whole time,” he says softly then, head in his hands, eyes downcast, which _hurts,_ because Bofur wants nothing more than to _look_ at him. To study his face. To make sense of the space between the lines, the corners of his mouth, the dark of his irises. “Nothing else,” he adds. “I’m sorry. I’ve literally just been thinking about you.” 

He does not elaborate, and Bofur is left to grapple with the silence, wheels spinning in the unspecified muck of it. _Thinking_ what _about me? How busted my car is? How dirty the House of Durin is? How much better off you’d be, how much clearer your future would be if you weren’t fucking your loser babysitter?_ He swallows unsteadily, taking his hat off and worrying it between his hands. “Anything specific?” he risks asking after a deep breath, waggling an eyebrow because he’s really not sure he can get through this thing if he doesn’t deflect with humor _somehow._ He can’t have this be the first truly and purely serious conversation in his life. He might die. And _yes,_ it’s avoidance, sure, but at least he’s _asking._ At least he’s intrepidly pushing onward. 

Bard clearly does not think it’s amusing, though. He looks up at Bofur with a pained, stricken look in his eyes, a line through his forehead. “Is everything a joke to you?” he asks. 

“No. No,” Bofur promises quickly, the drawn look on Bard’s face enough to sober him up. “It um. It really isn’t,” he confesses, crushing his hat between his hands, sucking in a sharp inhale of breath that spikes through his lungs like an arrow. “I actually. That’s a thing I do, when I’m—when I really want to—”

And _just_ as he’s about to buckle down and admit that he’s _trying,_ there’s a footstep out on the creaky floorboards in the hall, and he and Bard both freeze. Bofur’s heart ricochets up into his throat, silencing him as the door to Bard’s bedroom creaks open in increments. 

Sigrid peeps her head in, braids coming undone from sleeping on them. “Oh,” she says dryly, righting herself. “Bofur’s here, good.” 

“What are you doing out of bed?” Bard very awkwardly asks, eyes wide where he’s cemented in place. 

Sigrid rolls her eyes. “I thought someone was breaking in,” she says with a shrug, gaze volleying between Bofur and Bard, each shift adding a new layer of suspicion to her expression. “Did you guys kiss and make up?” 

“ _Kiss?”_ Bofur spits out because he is an idiot who can ruin everything he’s worked for in a matter of seconds, if provided an opportunity to do so. 

Bard just sighs, carding a hand through his hair. “Sigrid, please. We’re talking. Go start breakfast?” 

She doesn't _leave,_ though, she only sticks her tongue out at Bard before shifting to face Bofur, mouth twisting into the sort of bloodcurdling, infinitely _knowing_ smirk only a teenager could pull off. “So are you guys, like, together?” 

Bofur, of course, has no fucking idea what to say to that. He just stands there, sputtering, as Bard sets his jaw and says, “Yes,” very easily before shrugging, as if it’s nothing for him to say so. As if it’s obvious, uncomplicated, true. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Go. We can talk about it later. _Go._ Now,” he urges, rising to his feet when she doesn’t immediately leave and physically shooing her out before shutting the door. “God,” he murmurs, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. “We should have done this at a coffee shop or something.” 

But Bofur hardly even makes that out because his fucking ears are ringing, the blood thudding in them like a distorted bass line. He shakes his head, looking at the carpet because he _definitely_ can’t look at Bard, not right now. “ _Are_ we together?” he asks, voice higher and shriller than it means to be.

The silence is long and cutting. “Well,” Bard eventually snaps, tone so drastically altered from the exasperated firmness he used with Sigrid that Bofur’s gaze inevitably, reflexively skates up to lock onto him. “Aren’t we?! What do you think this is, Bofur? Are you seeing anyone else?” 

He forces that last bit out like it’s the only obstacle, the only deciding factor in whether or not this _thing_ they've been doing for the last few months is a _relationship._ Bofur would laugh if he had any air in his lungs, but he doesn’t, so instead he just shakes his head and reels back, eyes scrunching tightly as he tries to fucking make _sense_ of this, gasping like a hooked fish. “Please just answer,” Bard begs, and Bofur finally has it in him to utter a wordless sound of disbelief. 

“No! Of course not!” he spits out, heart racing.

Bard stands up then and starts to pace the room. “Look,” he starts with, and Bofur digs his heels in, bracing to have the bandage ripped off, for all his worst fears to come true. “You spend the night. We _fuck._ You cook us dinner. You do my laundry. You take care of my kids, we—we _said_ there were strings attached. We _wanted_ strings,” Bard spits, every word clipped and frustrated, sandpaper against already raw flesh. “I just don’t—,” and then the venom drains out of his voice, leaving only the hurt. _“When_ are you going to realize this isn't some fun, casual, convenient thing anymore and stop living like a child in your giant house of fucking lost boys and _move in with me?”_ he finally sputters out, each word coming up blood-flecked and bitter and _wounded._

Never—never in his _wildest_ imaginings of this scenario did Bofur anticipate something so _raw_ from Bard. He’s still processing it, still adjusting, still trying to make sense of the deluge even as he's blinking back rain. When he moves his hands to the bags beneath his eyes, they come back wet, and he realizes that it’s not rain at _all_ , it’s tears, bubbling up messy and unhindered, just as they did this morning for the birds. He sniffles and stares at his Docs for a moment, trying his hardest to sort out why this feels so _unfair,_ when technically, he _thinks_ it’s what he wants.

Then it hits him, the shock, the incredulity, _all_ of it. His gaze snaps up to Bard’s, pinning him there mid-step so that he freezes. “Did you—did you forget you’re fucking _paying me?!”_ he chokes up like bile, carding a hand so roughly through his own hair that it snags. “We _never_ put a word to this or terms on this! Bard, I’m your _babysitter._ You write me _checks.”_

Bard’s eyes flash, the glassy obsidian of them run through with a sudden flicker of pain. “I didn't _forget,_ I—”

Bofur doesn’t want to _hear_ it, though, not right now. He _can’t_ hear it. Not with the way the blood is roaring in his ears deafeningly, not with the way his hands are shaking at such a high frequency that he feels like he’s vibrating. He needs air, so he holds a flat palm up, stopping Bard short mid-sentence. “I have to help Sigrid start breakfast. Bain and Tilda are about to be up. I have to get my shit together so I can drive them to school.” 

“I’ll do it,” Bard murmurs automatically, but he’s sinking onto the bed, shoulders trembling, face hidden in the broad, lovely splay of his hands. Bofur wants to kiss the curve of his spine. He wants to make room for himself on the floor between Bard’s knees and cup his tired, insomnia-puffy face between his palms and tell him, _I already knew we were acting like a couple, I just didn’t know if_ you _knew. I didn’t know if you were paying me to be a stand in. If it was_ me _you wanted or just the space I was occupying._ He can’t make himself move, though, and he couldn't get those words out even if he _did_ move. His whole body is locked up into a defensive gather, face hot, fists tight at his sides, everything poised on a precipice he just _can’t_ make himself topple over. Not yet. 

“No, don’t. Let me do this. Just… Let me, okay?” Bofur begs, putting his hat back on with decisive force and turning to the door to let himself out of Bard’s room without waiting for an answer. 

He can hear cereal bowls clinking from the kitchen, the hiss from the coffee maker, and Bain and Tilda groggily rising as Sigrid raps her knuckles on their doors, _delighted_ to be the one to rouse them this morning. But under all of that clatter, he can hear the squeak of Bard’s mattress springs as if he is returning to bed, collapsing like a sigh, like a sob. 

It ruptures something in his chest, but Bofur’s gotten very good at ignoring that. 

—-

He drops the kids off at school, amazed to the point of almost being _horrified_ by how easy it is to set aside everything he’s feeling in order to get the job done. Bofur always tells himself that he functions poorly, that he’s missing something important other adults have, that so much of the basic shit the general population finds easy is _elusive_ to the point of feeling insurmountable, at least for him. Telling time on analog clocks. Sleep schedules. Memorizing phone numbers. Answering emails. Arithmetic. 

_Meanwhile,_ he’s totally able to compartmentalize the tumultuous rage of his own emotions with such success that he can drive in Berkeley traffic toting two screaming children in the car with no incident whatsoever. It’s remarkable. Maybe they should do studies on him or something, he can be, like, one of those doped-up lab rats with tubes sticking out of him. Bain and Tilda don’t even seem to _notice_ he’s having a rough go of it or that their dad didn't come out for breakfast. They’re too busy fighting over which My Little Pony villain is the coolest (Bain is Team Discord, Tilda is Team Changeling Queen, and as someone who has seen _lots_ of My Little Pony episodes on repeat, Bofur has to agree with her). They also just seem happy to have him back, which is its own sort of relief. He can do this. He can power through a drive. 

Sigrid, however, is totally on to him. She keeps shooting him lingering, judgmental glances from the passenger side, eyes narrowed, mouth scrunched up into a little rosebud like she's just tasted something sour. 

“What?!” he finally asks her, hands tight on the wheel as he steals a suspicious glance at her while they're stopped at a red light. “Why do you keep looking at me like I kicked your puppy?” 

“I don’t _have_ a puppy,” she snaps, gaze cutting back to the road. “You and my dad are _fighting.”_

 _“_ We’re not fighting,” he says unsteadily, even though he’s not sure. He does a quick scan of Bain and Tilda in the rearview mirror to check if they’re eavesdropping, but luckily, they’re still neck-deep in pony lore. “We’re talking,” he says to Sigrid, hitting the gas as the light changes. 

“Your eyes are all red. You’ve been crying,” Sigrid announces because she has never been one to beat around the bush. She crosses her arms dramatically. “So you’re fighting. Or else, someone died.” 

He’s about to shoot something equally snarky back at her, but when he looks over to the passenger’s side, he notices that while her lips are still pursed, her chin is trembling, eyes glistening, face upturned defiantly to the roof of the car like she’s trying to hold tears back and— _oh._ Oh. Bofur has been there a time or two or ten. “Hey,” he says, suddenly capable of swallowing back the last vestiges of his own childish indignation because this _actual_ child, this child who’s experienced loss, grief, and _death_ needs him right now. Needs him to at least pretend that things are going to be okay. “Sigrid, listen,” he says gently, working to pry the fingers of one hand from the wheel to reassuringly squeeze her shoulder. “Your dad and I are fine. We’re gonna work it out, it’s not—it isn’t important. It’s stupid grown-up stuff you shouldn't worry about, okay?” 

“You’re sure?” she asks, glaring at him with wet, wary eyes. They’re pulling into the dropoff line at school, and Tilda and Bain are already grabbing their backpacks and lunch pails, the energy in the backseat shifting as Sigrid stares at him, drilling a needle through him like he’s a butterfly and the seat of his car is a cork board. He swallows.

“Yes, definitely,” he assures her, wondering why it doesn't feel like a lie when he’s so uncertain in his gut. “Now _go,_ don’t you have a biggish paper due today?” he asks, even though it’s been a few days since he was intimately familiar with everyone’s homework schedule. 

She sniffles, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her green trench coat. “Yeah,” she says. “I finished it last minute last night. It sort of sucks.” 

“I’m sure it's better than everyone else’s paper in your class. Positive, actually” he says, and _that,_ at least, he _knows_ isn't a lie. “Also, Bain! Your sister is right, the Changeling Queen is cooler, I don’t even think Discord _qualifies_ as a bad guy anymore because he gets a redemption arc.” 

“A what arc?!” Bain shouts from the literal swarm of children he’s just hopped into from the backseat, like a tadpole swimming upstream. 

Bofur waves him off, deciding it’s hopeless. “Never mind. Have a good day, guys! Make good choices!” he adds, even though it's an _Almost Famous_ reference that he’s aware none of them will get. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. His brain shutting down to prevent him from experiencing the trauma of his own heart breaking is fine. At least it’s not telling time on analog clocks. Sleep schedules. Memorizing phone numbers. Answering emails. Arithmetic. He can shut off all his feelings and become a robot just fine, but god forbid someone asks him to do mental math. 

He drives away, spending ten minutes and three long blocks thinking he’s fine, but then a few miles from campus, everything hits him like a sledgehammer, and he quite suddenly has to pull over, Bard’s voice echoing in his head, the dark, singed-black of his eyes hammering into his mind like horseshoe nails. As he presses his forehead to the dashboard, eyes scrunched shut a little, stuffed down parts of their conversation surface, bits of waterlogged wood that refuse to sink below. Namely, _we said there were strings attached_ and _move in with me._

It makes Bofur physically squirm in his seat, to think about Bard genuinely _wanting_ those things from him. To think about this not being a joke, or a mistake, or a gambit. He’s spent so fucking _long_ convincing himself that he couldn't _have_ a real, honest-to-god relationship with Bard that hearing him treat whatever they’re doing like it already _was_ one…it shut him down, stopped him in his tracks. But now it’s actually washing over him, violent and salt-sticky like the tide. _I love you, Bard. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did, and I just really, really love you,_ he thinks, and he—he has those words, saved in a draft, ready to send. He fists a shaky hand into his pocket to find his phone. 

But when he unlocks it, he has three texts: 

_i called in sick. come back home, please,_ is the first one, followed by, _to my home, i mean._

The last sweet, clumsy amend reads, _the house. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say or how to say it right. I just want you back here. I’m not above begging._

Bofur is so overwhelmingly endeared that he tears up, even though he was positive there was not a single ounce of moisture left in him, not after this morning. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve as he types out _you are missing so much work for me lately :( we will fix that. in the meantime, no need to beg._ He hits send, stomach knotted up but maybe—maybe in a good way this time. Apprehension instead of dread. _I am on my way home to you,_ he types up then, hitting send before he starts the car again and lets the vast magnetic field of the universe pull him back where he needs to be. 

—-

“I’m so sorry,” Bard says as soon as Bofur lets himself in the front door. He’s changed into his gray sweatpants, his eyes are even redder than they were before, and Bofur loves him so fucking much that it makes his stomach hurt. He stumbles across the living room, pressing himself against the couch with his hands clutched along the back of it, just _waiting_ for permission to touch. To make things better. To fucking _fix_ it. “We should have talked,” Bard mumbles as he paces again, this time back and forth in front of the TV’s black, silent screen. “I should have told you how I felt a long time ago. I was—I was scared of pushing you away by wanting too much, too soon. I’m a coward.” 

“You're not,” Bofur pleads, knuckles white and bloodless. “Or like, if you are, I am, too.” 

Bard shakes his head. “I’m so sorry I didn't say something, though. That I went on paying you. _Of course_ you were confused. Of course you regarded this as, um… As an _arrangement_ or as part of your job,” he chokes out, gaze dropping dark and slick beneath the tumultuous angle of his brows. “I was a fool for letting that continue while I was falling in love with you. I’m a fool for falling in love with you in the first place. I put you in a terrible position. Just please tell me what I can do to set things right.” 

And Bofur _hears_ him, he hears the whole thing. But still, both times, the words _in love_ hit like lethal blows, so he stands there trying to breathe, committing the pattern on the couch cushions to memory because he can’t possibly look at Bard right now. It burns to even think about. All of him burns. “No, you’ve—you have it all wrong,” he manages to get out, shaking his head, uncementing his fingers from the couch and making himself move away from its security. Every nerve in his body is screaming at him that this isn’t real. Not that it’s a trick or a lie, but that it just _can’t be right,_ that Bard is making a terrible mistake, that even if he _thinks_ he’s in love, he couldn’t possibly be. That he’s missing some crucial information, the bit where Bofur is fundamentally unlovable and undeserving of good, real, solid, beautiful things. 

He can’t listen to every nerve in his body, though, because _they’re_ the tricks, _they’re_ telling him the lies. So he ignores the screaming and crosses the room to take Bard’s forearms in his own hands, smoothing up the cords of muscle with his thumbs reassuringly. “I've been—I thought _I_ was the fool,” he says gently, rubbing over the soft, thin skin in the ditches of Bard’s elbows, noticing the way he’s holding his breath all trembling and fragile, poised to come apart. “I thought _I_ was the fool for falling in love with _you,”_ Bofur finally admits, voice soft as it’s stretched over those terrifying words, breath tight in his throat. Bard winces, like it hurts. Like he doesn't believe in good things so easily, either. 

Bofur presses on. “I thought it was so fucking hopeless, like—I felt like I was in one of those tragic movies where the nanny falls in love with the hot single dad. I felt like Maria von Trapp, but ugly.” 

Bard laughs then, though it comes out more of a tear-strangled choking sound. He takes off Bofur’s hat, drops it to the floor, and roughly pulls him close enough to press his mouth into his dirty hair, lips moving in the soft, downy mess of it as he murmurs, “You’re not _ugly,_ you’re—you’re everything I’ve ever wanted ever since I let myself want things again.” The words come out muffled and damp, run through with holes, but Bofur can tell they’re true even if they’re hard to believe. He slides his hands higher, clutching at the swell of Bard’s biceps as Bard links his fingers behind Bofur’s neck, their bodies joined in this messy, imperfectly-perfect way. 

His gaze is fixed somewhere weary and indistinct near the stretched-out V neck of Bard’s shirt, and since he can't see his face, it’s that much easier for him to bark out a short, disbelieving, “How?” He swallows thickly then, eye drifting shut, breath matching itself subconsciously to Bard’s. “You were right, before... I live like a college student, with college students, minus the whole classes and being smart bit. I’ve lost a lot of jobs. I have crooked teeth. I'm a mess.” 

Bard abruptly peels back to look at him then, face a mask of genuine confusion. “What are you talking about?” he asks, tongue sweeping his lips, breath huffing close enough that Bofur can taste it. It makes him lick his own mouth reflexively, heart thundering. “You _are_ smart, you’re _so_ smart. You figured out how to fix my porch swing, which I was about to declare a lost cause. You keep up with all the imaginary characters in Tilda’s fantasy games. You—you’re a kind, sweet man.” 

“I’m—I’m just—,” Bofur sputters, but Bard is thumbing over his lips then, gaze dark as he backs him up into the couch, taking him down so they collapse in a mess of limbs, and breath, and trembles. “You make me laugh,” Bard continues in an awed murmur, mouth hot against Bofur’s neck, stubble scraping sweetly. “You have the handsomest smile I've ever seen, and you love my children, and they love you. _I_ love you, I’ve loved you long before I ever got to do anything about it. I love your crooked teeth. There’s nothing to not love,” he says plainly, before opening his mouth and affixing the hot, delectable suck of it over Bofur’s thundering pulse. 

Bofur tries to think, but it’s hard. He’s lost in the slick push of Bard’s tongue, the feel of his lashes fluttering against his skin as the world dissolves into static and heat, ground down to dust between the insistent, shifting burn of their bodies. This whole thing is _astounding._ Bard wants him. Bard loves him, as he is. _Bard_ , who is saying all these insane confessions with _such_ fucking clarity and certainty that Bofur _knows_ they’re true, no matter how unlikely they might seem. “You want me to move in?” he mumbles against Bard’s ear when he finds his voice again, hips lifting, stars eclipsing his mind as the friction builds, hot and maddening. “And be like—be _yours?_ Because I already am. I love you so much,” he admits, the words wobbling in their newness, their fragility, their _truth._ He swallows thickly. “I want to live with you, you just have to ask.” 

Bard peels back only to dive back in for the deepest, hungriest kiss. It’s fire and metal, it’s the whole entire sun. Bofur flexes his arms where they’re looped around Bard’s back and pulls him closer, crushing the breath out of him so his voice is weak when he says, “ _Please_ move in with me, _god,_ please.” He pulls away only to mouth wetly down Bofur’s throat, knocking his knees apart with his hips to settle his lower half between them, grinding. “I hate every day I don’t come home to you. Every day I don't wake up with you. I'm so _insanely_ greedy, Bofur _,_ I'm jealous of your _bed_ ,” he confesses in a rush, hands pushing up underneath the back of Bofur’s shirt between his body and the couch to drag over fever-hot skin, nails digging in like he wants to leave marks. “I want to be the first person you text when your car breaks down. I want you to meet my mother. I want you all the time, in every way.” 

And then they kiss and they _kiss_ , and Bofur cannot fucking believe that he _has_ this. That he gets something so fucking _good._

Bard feels like gold under his palms, like pearl and shell and the whole of a hot tee-ball day, the whole of a winter fire. All the best things in life, the things that last even when you’re old and your memory is half-gone. The smoke from a votive in a pumpkin. Melted sugar. The month of August, those last precious moments before school steals another year and chokes it with chalk-dust and equations. Wheat fields and good brandy and honey right from the comb. 

Bofur sucks Bard’s tongue and gives himself unyieldingly to the sway of a life he never thought he could have. He’s never actually let himself want this life _seriously_ , but that didn’t stop him from wanting it not-seriously every stupid day with every ounce of blood left in his heart, the way very poor men dream of winning the lottery. It didn’t stop him from wishing on a star. And he’s just—he’s not _used_ to wishing on stars actually _working_ , on amounting to anything at all. It’s a fucking _miracle,_ having Bard in his arms. To stop holding himself back at long last from every massive, terrible, world-ending thing he wants from him. 

“God,” he chokes out at some point, one hand wrist-deep in Bard’s hair, the other shoved down the back of his sweats, gripping him tight, pulling him closer, even though there’s no such thing as closer, not without breaking a rib. “You’re mad to think this is a fair trade. That m’worth wanting.” 

“Stop,” Bard chokes out, laugh the brightest, broadest, most brilliant thing in the universe. His eyes are slits of flint, glittering and precious. “You are so, _so_ very worth all wanting. I love you. I loved you when we went to the Academy of Sciences, and that woman thought we were married.” 

“I loved you then, too,” Bofur admits, hiding his own smile against the line of Bard’s jaw. “I hadn’t said it to myself, even in my head, but I did.” 

Bard’s breath scrapes over a wordless groan. “You put your arm around me, and I thought I was going to fucking die. I thought about it for hours afterwards. I dreamed of your lips.” 

“ _Fuck,_ Bard,” Bofur gaps as his stomach clenches low and hot, cock flexing in his jeans, pressing against the thick line of Bard’s erection as they drag together. “I love you so _much_ , why—why didn’t you _tell_ me before?” he asks, voice dying in his throat as Bard angles their hips just so and rocks against him pointedly, deliberately, gaze trained on the way Bofur’s head is thrown back. “Would have saved me a lot of fucking weed and tears and, like, self-loathing.” 

Bard kisses down the column of his throat, pressing a smile to the place where Bofur’s breath is stuck and his pulse is fluttering. “You’d never been with a man before,” he bites out, pelvis angled so that they’re pressed flush, and Bofur is lost to static, to stars, to heat. “I thought for certain you needed time… that you’d run if you knew what I felt. You can’t _blame_ me, Dwalin came to work asking me about your _girlfriend_.” 

Bofur winces, forcing his eyes open only so that he can lock gazes with Bard, fit his hands to his hips, and cup them fiercely to feel him out, steady him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “It wasn’t like that, I—already loved you. I already wanted to be yours.” 

“God,” Bard chokes out, pitching forward to press their brows together, adhered with a fine sheen of sweat. “Hearing you say that—,” he notches closer, grinding deeper, breath coming out in low, desperate gasps, nothing but air. “You know I thought—I’ll wait it out. Wait until he’s ready. We don't have to call it anything until he's used to this, but then I—I fell so fucking hard. I got so impatient, and I pushed and pushed and it wasn’t fair, so _I’m_ the one who should be sorry.” 

“No, no,” Bofur pants out against his lips, hooking an arm around the back of his neck to drag him _closer,_ more flush, until their hearts are pressed together and he cannot tell one frantic beat from the other. “I was—I should have told you. It wasn’t that you’re a _man_ , or anything like that, I was scared because— _Bard,_ you’re so fucking _good_ and sexy and perfect, and I just didn’t think I deserved it. I didn't think it was possible. So I ran before I ever— _fuck._ I love you. M’here now. I’m totally one hundred percent here, as long as you want me.” 

“I want you,” Bard promises. “I want you for the rest of my life,” he swears in a low, stomach-turning voice, dragging his teeth possessively down the hinge of Bofur’s jaw. It makes him shiver, a stinging prickle rush to his eyes. Bard thumbs over his mustache and then his mouth before he falls in for a deep, wet, wound-wide kiss. “Take me to bed,” he murmurs into the slickness. “Please.” 

And Bofur means to do just that. 

—-

It takes a long time for them to actually pull apart long enough to _get_ there, though. Bofur doesn’t want to stop kissing Bard, touching him, sifting his fingers through his loose, soft curls, and sucking his tongue, which tastes like heaven. He didn’t know he could _miss_ something so powerfully after only two and a half days without it, but he _did._ So fucking badly. _Please don’t let me go this long without you ever again,_ he thinks, thumbing back and forth over the tight, hot skin drawn over Bard’s flexed obliques. _Don’t leave._

Finally, Bard manages to drag himself away, sitting back on his heels and gasping. His cheeks are flushed, eyes black, hair rucked up in a static-messy brown halo, and he’s so mind-blowingly gorgeous that Bofur wants to cry. He smiles instead because he actually gets to _keep_ him this time. It feels weird, realizing that. That he doesn’t have to wonder what it feels like to lose this. “Jesus, you’re so sexy,” he slurs, hooking a leg around Bard’s back, digging the heel of his boot into him. “Makes me feel drunk.” 

“Yeah?” Bard asks, stripping his shirt off and tossing it across the room, smile a wild, hectic thing spreading across his face like honey. It makes Bofur’s heart clench. “This is why we should go to _bed._ We’ve fucked too many times on this couch. Then we sit here and watch cartoons with the kids and I feel weird. So,” he says, rubbing his palms over Bofur’s chest before standing and holding his hand out like an offering. “ _Please._ Come to bed.” 

Bofur scrambles up, clumsily undoing his laces and kicking out of his boots in the hall. By the time he’s actually in Bard’s room, he’s half out of his pants, too, which are hanging in clumsy trappings around his knees as he tackles Bard onto the unmade sheets. 

The air huffs out of them both in breathless gasps of almost-laughter, and Bard cants up to catch Bofur’s mouth, trying to kick uselessly out of his own sweats, which is near impossible because Bofur won’t let him up. “So this is, like, _our_ bed?” he asks between kisses, grinding into him. 

“Yes,” Bard promises, tugging a fistful of Bofur’s shirt. “All of this is ours. Except you, you’re all mine,” he says slyly then, spreading his legs wider, letting Bofur rut against him. “God. And I’m fucking lucky.” 

Bofur shakes his head, still stricken with disbelief, but he’s not _complaining._ He sucks an aimless path down Bard’s neck, nuzzling into him, inhaling him, rubbing their cocks together through layers of fabric. And he’d get off just like _this,_ really, in his boxers with Bard writhing beneath him, but he wants _more._ He wants it all. “I’m the lucky one,” he murmurs, palming up Bard’s side, rubbing his face down his sternum into the ditch between his pectorals before sucking a nipple into his mouth, loving the way Bard groans, back arching. He’s so sensitive and responsive and _loud_ , and Bofur _loves it._ He wants to fuck him again so badly, wants to swallow up every sound he makes, dig up in him and feel his heartbeat there, steady and raw against his fingers. “Can I have you?” he asks then, voice soft, mouth wet as he looks up from under his own brows, studying Bard’s face for explicit permission, even though he’s pretty sure he has it already. “Like. I—I really want to fuck you again. It doesn’t have to be _right now,_ it could be—like whenever you’re ready, if—”

“Bofur,” Bard breathes, hands flexing where they’re splayed broad and greedy over his scapulae. “Come here. Kiss me,” he demands, and Bofur levers himself up to do just that, dizzy on the taste of his breath, how swollen and slick his lips already are. “Listen,” Bard breathes, hooking a thumb into the corner of Bofur’s mouth, licking over his teeth, wet and filthy. “I want your cock all the time. I’m always ready,” he says, eyes so dark they’re like tar pits, sticky and impossible to escape. “Please. God. I’m yours, I’m _so_ yours, I feel like you don’t understand how much all of me belongs to you.” 

Bofur’s eyes burn as he shuts them tight, spit on his chin as he kisses back deep and claiming. Bard’s right, he _doesn’t_ understand. It’s impossible to comprehend, really, but he’ll die trying, if that’s what it takes. He palms down the outside of Bard’s flexing thighs and makes fists in his half-discarded sweats so that he can curl them up and pull them down over his ass, squeezing and palming as he goes, positively _stunned_ that this is just something he gets to _do._ Gets to have. “ _Fuck._ I love you,” he murmurs, fingers inching into the warm, humid crease of Bard’s ass, mouth messy and gasping as he rubs over the tight furl of muscle there, astounded at the way Bard keens, bucks back, softens up. “I was convinced I’d never get to have you like this again.” 

“No,” Bard gasps, bearing down, heart wild in his chest. “You can have me whenever you want.”

Bofur brings his fingers up to his mouth to wet them so that he might be able to touch more freely, but he’s so suddenly bowled over by the _flavor_ the second he does it, he’s distracted away from his original intention. He can _taste Bard_ there on his fingertips, spice and musk and salt, and it makes his stomach twist up in sudden powerful longing. He’s mouthing his way down Bard’s body, then, hands everywhere, teeth sharp before the slick, hungry flick of his tongue follows. He’s not even really sure what his end goal is, but he _does_ know that even after nursing messily on the head of Bard’s cock for a few minutes, he wants _more._ More filth, more purity, more intimacy. He doesn’t even fully realize _what_ that means specifically until he’s sinking to his knees at the side of the bed for a better angle and pushing Bard’s thigh to his chest, burying his face in the crack of his ass to swipe the slick of his tongue over his hole beneath the heavy weight of his balls. 

Bard cries out, tenses, and then softens up the second Bofur deepens his strokes, groans muddled as he licks greedily _,_ deeper and deeper until he sees stars and has to pull back to breathe through the static. He stares down at the dark pink flutter of Bard’s hole, the way his hair is matted down in spit, and feels his cock flex and drip in his boxers. _God._ He wants all of him, so, so badly. He thinks every fucking inch of Bard tastes so _good._ It should be crazy, but it’s not. It’s perfect. 

“Here,” Bard grits out, lifting one leg over Bofur’s head so that he can shift onto his stomach, arch his back and push his ass into the air, sweat beading in the suggestive curve of his spine. 

Bofur swallows thickly, eyes hazy as he stares. “Okay, wow. Cut right to the action. I see how it is.” 

Bard peers at him upside down from underneath his arm as he props himself up. “If you haven’t already figured it out, I _really_ like having my ass played with,” he says plainly. 

Bofur chokes out a laugh, palming Bard apart to thumb up his crack, rubbing experimentally into the muscle, pushing past the rim and into the heat of his body, watching with fascination as he gasps and squirms. He’s so fucking beautiful, it ties him up in knots. “Oh no, I figured it out,” he mumbles, pulling out to spit into his palm and rub the froth in, loving the way Bard rocks back and forth, seeking pressure. “And m’so fucking _lucky_ to be the guy who gets to oblige. God. You’re so sexy. You’re perfect.” 

“You touch me perfect,” Bard grinds out against his forearm, hips shifting, the meat of his ass flexing and gathering. Bofur leans close to bite it, to lick his way down, to dive back in and drown. Bard tastes good and he _feels_ good, the fistfuls of muscle, the spasms of his legs, the heat of his skin, the tight pucker of his hole, so easily licked to submission that Bofur can drill his tongue inside, eliciting hisses, gasps, curses. _Fuck._ Bofur’s not sure why this feels so insanely good, but it _is._ He has to take his cock in hand over it, stroking himself, fingers smoothing over the slick-wet tip. Maybe it’s the fact that Bard _likes_ it so much, or maybe it’s the way that literally _everything_ about sex is better when you’re in love and know the other person loves you back. He also thinks it might have something to do with, like—the _control._ The overwhelm. Bard is spread out and vulnerable and trembling because of _him,_ because of his mouth, and that’s fucking _crazy._ It’s so _hot_. 

He always liked eating girls out better than fingering them because he could _see_ stuff, he could get right down into the thick of things and figure them out instead of shooting blind in the dark. With Bard—splitting him open and licking him out—it’s like that, only better because he loves him. Because the nuance of his body isn't a mystery, it’s a mirror, and he loves puzzling through it, experimenting and indulging and exploring until he learns _exactly_ what feels best, what will drag raw, desperate moans from his lips. 

He’s not sure how long he stays there, he only stops when he starts to get light-headed, pulling away with his mustache wet with spit and sweat, his jaw aching, and every second of it so fucking worth it just to _see_ Bard like this. To feel how badly he needs it. “Hey,” he says, smoothing his hands up Bard’s sweat-damp back, kissing the notches of his spine with a swollen mouth. “You want me to fuck you, huh?” he huffs out against the nape of Bard’s neck, hair stuck to his lips as he pushes his boxers and jeans down the rest of the way, kicking them off so he can rut into the spit-wet crack of Bard’s ass, gasping at the _heat,_ the slickness. “ _God_ , I love you. Fucking feel so good.” 

Bard reaches around clumsily to cuff Bofur on the back of his neck, pulling him close. “Love you, too, love you so much,” he murmurs, voice a snagged thing, full of breath. “Please,” he whimpers, opening his eyes just enough to catch Bofur’s gaze, and, _fuck,_ they’re so black, so pleading, so full. “Please fuck me, I need it bad.” 

It sends an electric sensation rocketing through Bofur’s body, sudden and hot. He leans over to the bedside table for the massage oil, noticing that his hands aren't shaking this time. All of him is steady. He’s in for the long haul, every ounce of him. “Got you,” he says, kissing a mole on Bard’s back as he uncaps the lube. 

He takes his time today, now that he knows he has time to take. That this miraculously doesn’t have an expiration date, that Bard isn't about to shove him off and change his mind, having rethought everything and decided he doesn’t want it. So Bofur fingers him open slow and deep, kissing over the curve of his shoulder blade, learning the shape of it with his tongue until Bard is bucking and cursing and begging. Then he fucks him with just as much care, just as much tenderness, stealing kisses from his mouth when the angle is right, pressing his own gasping lips to Bard’s sweat-slick temple when it’s not, one arm curled around his throat, the other braced and quaking to hold himself up. Bofur pushes pelvic-bone deep and circles his hips, then pulls _almost-out_ before slamming back in. He memorizes every inch, swallows and tracks and treasures every sound, every gasp, every hitch in breath. He tells Bard he loves him over and over again, so sure that he’s being annoying or excessive, so moved when Bard just sobs and rocks into him and proves that he’s not. 

It’s heaven. It’s—it’s everything Bofur’s never let himself want unless he was half-asleep or too high to trick himself out of it or backed into a corner at the tip of a blade. It’s everything he’d hidden and buried and silenced in his heart of hearts. 

It’s _vulnerable,_ fucking someone like this. Holding Bard’s body so close and drinking it in like it’s air, lost in the smell of him, his stale morning sweat and salty breath and his unwashed hair, heart rabbiting under the hungry spread of Bofur’s hand. 

When he finally comes, he presses all his tears into the back of Bard’s neck, shuddering as he fills him up, hips snapping, teeth grit. Bofur’s not _done,_ though, even if he got off, even if he’s dizzy and trembling and can hardly see straight through the haze of static. He rolls Bard onto his back and gets between his knees to suck him off, determined to have him _every_ way. To get his fill, even though he doesn’t _have_ to, supposedly this is something he can have all the time, whenever he wants. His stomach drops as he pushes three fingers up into Bard’s used hole, pushing the mess of his own load deeper, slicking his knuckles in it while he gags on his cock. 

He takes his time doing _this,_ too. Pulling off to kiss Bard’s thighs when he feels him getting close, fingers crooked and still so that Bard groans in frustration and shifts down the bed to fuck himself on them, the most gorgeous thing in the whole fucking world. Bofur teases with the very tip of his tongue, he makes it _so_ wet, so sloppy, so _slow._ Bard’s hair is sweat-slicked across his brow when Bofur finally lets him come, a violent flush climbing all the way down his chest, staining his sternum red. _Fuck._ Bofur swallows, licks his lips, and withdraws his fingers, which are puckered and pale from how _wet_ Bard is inside. “Damn,” he croaks after he wipes them on the sheets, climbing up to bracket Bard between his knees and kiss him deep, even though neither of them can really breathe. “I could get used to doing this every night.” 

Bard’s smile is delirious, which means Bofur has to keep kissing it, even after he settles onto the bed in the loose curl of Bard’s arm, their sticky skin pressed flush. “You’re so pleased with yourself,” Bard observes, palm very hot as he cups Bofur’s cheek, threads his fingertips through messy hair. “As you should be.” 

“I love you,” Bofur says, since he can, since he’s _allowed_ to. He hasn’t really _stopped_ saying it, after ripping the initial band-aid off and stabilizing under the sudden burn. 

Bard doesn’t seem to mind. “I love you back,” he murmurs as he settles closer, kissing each of Bofur’s eyelids, spreading a hand over his stomach, and moving his happy trail against the grain. “So very, very much.” 

They lie there for a few long moments, tangled up as their skin cools, and Bofur tries, and fails, to stop _beaming. “_ So,” he says eventually, because he can’t fucking stand it. “Are we like—what do I call you? My boyfriend?” 

A sweet, messy laugh bubbles up from Bard’s throat, the vibration of it rumbling against Bofur’s temple. “Yeah, we…we can be boyfriends, if you want. It sounds sort of like. Young, though, doesn’t it?” 

“Aye,” Bofur agrees, wrinkling his nose. “And like. Trivial. This doesn’t feel trivial.” 

Bard’s lips are so soft against his hairline, curled into a smile. “What about partners?” 

Bofur squirms, cheeks so fucking hot, he feels like the pillowcases are going to get singed. “I like that. It’s like cowboys,” he mumbles before holding up his hand and offering it to Bard so that they can shake. “Howdy, partner.” 

Bard laughs, his breath sudden and explosive, abs tensing up visibly. Bofur likes that. Likes all the indisputable, physical evidence that he can make this man laugh, that he affects him. Bard recovers and complies, murmuring, “Alright, it’s settled then,” as he curls his fingers around Bofur’s hand in his own, shaking it decisively. 

Instead of letting go, Bofur rolls onto his back, taking Bard’s hand with him and dragging it over his chest, atop the still nervous thunder of his heart. “God,” he whispers, shaking his head and staring at the ceiling, brushing tenderly over Bard’s knuckles. “I can’t believe how badly I almost fucked this whole thing up.” 

Bard makes a wordless sound, eyes shut as he kisses the curve of Bofur’s shoulders, thumbing over his nipple until it’s drawn tight and hard. “I think it was a joint effort, to be fair,” he says eventually. “We could have both done a much better job talking. Saying how we felt instead of making assumptions. Overthinking it all into a serious problem.

Bofur nods, eyes sliding shut. “I’m great at overthinking, bad at talking,” he admits. “But—it’s easier now that I know you actually want me for reals.” He frowns, then, shifting the skin of Bard’s forearm back and forth over the plane of muscle beneath. “You’ve been really fucking patient with me. Thank you for that, by the way.” 

“Oh,” Bard says, furrowing his brow and skimming his lips down to Bofur’s cheekbone, then his jaw. “You don’t need to thank me. Of course I tried to be patient, I—I love you. I would have waited so much longer,” he says, propping himself up onto his forearm so that he can dip down and catch Bofur’s lips with his own, kissing him long and sweet and tender. “I would have done anything,” he murmurs, and it turns Bofur’s stomach with how _soft_ it sounds in Bard’s voice, the smallest and most delicate flickers of flame. “I _hate_ that this whole time you thought you didn’t deserve this, and _that’s_ why you were holding back.” He pulls back, eyes sparkling, cheeks still messy and hectic with red. “What do I have to do to prove to you how lucky I feel? How much I want to be with you?” he breathes, fingers brushing down Bofur’s throat, over the speeding lurch of his pulse. 

Bofur feels himself blush, his stomach twisting up defensively. He’s not _used_ to people asking him what he needs, and furthermore, he’s not used to _voicing_ what those needs are, even to himself. He chews his lips for what feels like a long time, relieved when Bard quits looking him in the eye, his gaze instead softening to Bofur’s sternum, where he smooths his fingers back and forth idly, tracing nonsense patterns. Bofur takes a deep breath and tries to put it to words. “I don’t know if there’s anything _you_ can do because it’s not you, it’s me. It’s the way my head works or like, doesn't _…_ work?” he tries to explain, frowning. Bard nods, licking his lips, waiting for more. Bofur inhales raggedly and presses on, stunned by how _weird_ it is that someone actually _cares_ enough to listen to this stuff. That someone is so interested in him that he’ll pry him apart like a locket and try to decipher the faded fragments inside. “I guess it would be helpful if you were really blunt and clear about things? I think that there was like—a lot of room for me to worry, and invent shit, and freak out. I’m not great with subtlety, I guess, because I’ll always look for a way to read something negative into it and psych myself out. I’m very creative like that. I know that’s probably annoying, but it’s just the way I think,” he explains, chest increasingly tight with every new word. Once it’s all out there, sitting and festering and looking ugly, he rubs his palm over his face. “Ugh. That’s the longest I’ve talked about myself in—like, my whole life, without making a joke.” 

Bard pulls his hand down and kisses him. “Thank you,” he murmurs against his lips, breath warm and reassuring and so fucking _good_ -smelling that Bofur wants to lick him up all over again. “For talking to me. I could listen to you talk, especially about yourself, forever.” 

Bofur snorts, averting his gaze sharply, breath tight in his throat. “You’re crazy.” 

“I just love you,” Bard promises, pressing his face into his neck and inhaling. “But that—being more blunt. That’s doable. I’ll admit the last few months I’ve been relying somewhat on ambiguity,” he explains, pulling back to settle into the pillows, thumbing over his stubble thoughtfully. “About what I was feeling, at least. So I’d have plausible deniability if you tried to back out. But now that I know that we’re into this together? I can lay things out in clearer terms.” 

“Yeah?” Bofur asks, raising his eyebrows at how fucking— _easy_ that seems. Bard just agreeing to try something new for his sake because he loves him. He shakes his head, still baffled that he’s _worth_ something so good. 

“Yes,” Bard promises, gaze dark, sincere. “Here, watch,” he says then, gaze intensifying, hand flattening out over the thud of Bofur’s heart. “I would like you to meet my mother soon because I love you, and my family is important to me, and I want very much for you to be a part of it more than you already are,” he declares. Bofur watches, every word needling deeper into him, tightening his gut, squeezing his heart. _God._ He is so fucking in love. “How was that?” Bard asks, half of his mouth quirking up into a smile. 

“Good, great, much better,” Bofur sputters, shaking his head. “I—I… does she, um. Does she know about me? I mean, I know she _knows I exist_ , but does she like. _Know know.”_

 _“_ Yes, sort of,” Bard explains, passing his tongue over his lips, shifting closer to tangle their legs. “I told her I've been seeing someone, and that I was in love with this person, and that I was pretty sure I felt more seriously about it than they did. And as we established, I have been intentionally ambiguous so I was using words like ‘person’ and ‘them,’ but she’s a clever woman and managed to put together that it was probably a man and therefore, probably you, as I don’t exactly have an abundance of male friends.” 

Bofur lies there, trying to process the fact that Bard told his _mother_ he was in love with the person he was seeing. He probably told her that _before_ Bofur wiggled out of dinner with her. “I’m sorry I bailed, before,” he says, covering Bard’s hand with his own, thumbing over the bone of his wrist. “I was trying—I didn’t want to get used to having too much of you because I thought it wasn’t mine, you know? I didn’t think I’d get to keep any of it.” 

Bard disentangles their hands so that he can smooth his fingers down the end of Bofur’s mustache, twirling it before he tugs. “I understand,” he says. “But for the record, you get to keep it all. Awkward dinners with my fretting, wine-pounding mother included.” 

“Will it be a problem, that I’m a man?” he asks then, because it just occurred to him that it _could_ be. They’re in the bay area, sure, but that doesn’t _really_ mean _anything,_ notwhen it comes to their parents’ generation. He doesn't speak to his own mother anymore, but he imagines _she_ would certainly have a problem with Bard, were he to introduce them. It’s weird to think about, so he shuts his eyes tight, stomach lurching at the thought, mouth twitching into a grimace. 

Bard notices and brushes his fingers over his lips gently, until Bofur has to kiss them. “Now that you agreed to move in with me, and she doesn’t have to worry about this nameless love of mine breaking my heart? Not at all. She’ll love you. She thinks Kirk Hammett has a cute butt, so she’ll think you do, too.” 

Bofur snorts. “Just what I always wanted, my partner’s mom thinking I have a cute butt.” 

Bard kisses him full on the mouth, licking his lips apart. “Fuck,” he says, lashes dark and fluttering as Bofur sneaks a look through slit eyes. “Call me that forever.” 

“Promise,” Bofur murmurs, yawning right into their kiss. “Fuck. Sorry. M’exhausted, dicking you down is hard work, and I haven’t slept in like, three nights?” 

Bard pulls away and curls up against him, an arm tossed heavy and sweat-sticky over his stomach. It shouldn’t feel good, but it does. It feels like the most perfect, comforting, magical thing in the world. “Me either,” he admits. “Missing you too bad. Worrying. Telling myself to calm the fuck down and stop agonizing over a man who didn’t even want to introduce me to his friends,” he shakes his head, pressing the sharp white slice of his grin into Bofur’s ribcage. “We were both being pretty stupid, huh.” 

“Maybe not stupid. Overly cautious. Only fair for two old guys. Old partners. Partner,” he yawns again, fairly certain that he’s not making sense anymore, his eyes heavy, limbs heavier as he sags into Bard, turning his head to bury his lips in his hair. “If I had my hat, I’d do a cowboy tip, like it was a cowboy hat. But I don’t. And also m’sort of asleep.” 

Bard tits his head up and kisses his armpit. “Goodnight,” he mumbles after he kicks the sheet up onto their legs. “See you on the other side, partner.” 

And Bofur has never been so certain that his best and wildest dreams wouldn’t live up to the glory of his reality, but still, he drifts off fast and hard and easy, like a stone cast to the bottom of a deep green lake, shafts of the warmest sunlight filtering down through the idle lap of waves


	12. In Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY. It's here, friends, the last chapter of this story. I put off writing this one for a long time because I didn't want to say goodbye to my boys, but LUCKILY I've thought up about a hundred little timestamps to write SO! It's not goodbye forever. Thank you all SO much for reading this, thank you for commenting, for doing art, for writing your own Bardfur stories...I really hope this kicks off more enthusiasm for the pairing BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT!! Ugh anyway writing this was such a blast and SEE IF YALL CAN GUESS THE NEXT PAIRING I'm gonna tackle in the House of Durin verse!!! There might be...a tiny tiny hint in this chapter. 
> 
> THANK YOU AGAIN AND TA TA FOR NOW! (and don't forget to check out Incogneet0's illustrations!!!)

They last the rest of the day without telling anyone. It’s not that they’re actively _keeping_ it from the House of Durin, it’s more that the certainty of the relationship just feels so new and fragile and magical that Bofur’s not totally _ready_ to share it yet. To let it touch the air and become something his friends get to have words and opinions about. He’s perfectly content stealing kisses from Bard in the kitchen while the kids do their homework, or shivering under the weight of Bard’s palm as he squeezes his shoulder in passing on the way out the door to his White Horse shift. Their eyes meet for a moment, dark and electric, and Bofur’s stomach plummets so hard and fast, he feels dizzy. “I love you very much,” Bard says quietly, as to not be heard above the din of cartoons coming from the living room. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Then he licks his lips and he’s out the door and Bofur’s _mouth_ stings from how badly he wants to kiss him, now that he knows he’s _his._ That he finally gets to sleep next to him again tonight and every night _after_ that, from here until the ending of the world. He sucks in a shuddering sigh and leans against the door frame. He’s just breathing in the cool crisp of the night air for a few moments, his exhalations creating plumes in the porch light, when he feels a sudden jab in his lower back. “Ow!” he says, whipping around to glare at Sigrid, who is standing with her arms crossed, her hair up in a messy half-bun like her dad instead of down around her shoulders or pinned back in braids. Her eyes look red-rimmed from crying, so Bofur softens immediately. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. Your dad and me, we’re good.” 

“I know,” she says, pushing past him and dumping herself into the porch swing, body tight and brooding. She rocks back and forth for a moment, looking not at all relieved, and Bofur presses his lips together and shuts the door quietly behind him, realizing he’s, like, a fucking _parent_ now. A few days ago, he might have thought the gravity of that realization would stress him out or something, but instead, it lifts a weight he hardly realized was bearing down on his shoulders. It feels _good,_ to realize that this is more than just his job, now. It’s his life. 

He goes and sits down next to Sigrid, and together they swing quietly, the creak of the chains holding the swing up, the only sound besides cicada-song. “If you’re _wondering,_ ’m not going anywhere,” he says then, eyes fixed on the small cloud of white moths bumping clumsily around the porch light. “Not sure if that’s good or bad news for you, to be honest, but it’s the truth.” 

Sigrid snorts. “Good news, obviously. Do you think I'm one of those kids who _doesn’t_ want their dad to get married and be happy again after their mom dies? Real life isn’t the movies, Bofur,” she snaps. He just sits there in silence beside her for a moment, letting her words sink in, trying to figure out what to say. But then his breath stops all together because Sigrid scoots a few inches over and lets her head fall to his shoulder. “I’m not gonna call you dad, though.” 

“That’s fine,” he eventually offers when his heart slows. “You can call me…um…captain.” 

“Nah, I’m the captain,” she decides, picking at the cushion under her knees. “You can be the first mate.”

“Okay, fine. What’s your dad, then?” he asks, ruffling up her hair and finally relaxing, unable to fight the massive smile creeping up on his lips. He’s spent the entire time he’s worked as their nanny secretly wondering if Sigrid hated him, and having this confirmation she doesn’t—that she _wants_ him to stay, that she’s alright with his relationship with her father—feels like winning the lottery. He could cry if he let himself, but he also knows she’d just relentlessly make fun of him, and he doesn’t want to ruin this moment. 

“Um…the Boatswain,” she decides, giggling. 

Bofur wrinkles his nose. “What’s that?” 

“You don’t know the designations on a _pirate_ ship?” she says then, voice sharp and accusatory as she sits up to glare at him. He grins as her, honestly thrilled they’ve moved on from whatever they were talking about before to _pirates._ He’s frankly pretty nervous about discussing with the kids the way his role with them is inevitably going to change, now that his relationship with Bard is shifting into something permanent and concrete. But knowing Sigrid, at least, can already joke with him about it is a massive relief. 

“Lassie, my knowledge of pirates is limited to the Disneyland ride, sorry,” he offers. 

She rolls her eyes. “Well. Boatswains are, like…junior officers who keep the crew in line, sort of…but in a camp counselor way. ”

“Perfect,” Bofur snickers. “So, what you’re saying is that _we_ run the show.” 

“Pretty much!” she announces, holding out a hand to high-five him. Then she gets up, taking down her hair and carding her fingers through it as she walks across the porch to the front door. “I’m gonna go read,” she says, shooting him a look. “But, like, good talk, First Mate.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Bofur says, saluting her as she lets herself inside, leaving him swinging there under the swirl of moths. 

The dark is a quiet thing once she’s gone, and he gazes off into it, thinking about how Bard is coming _home_ to him in a few hours, then they’ll be _home_ together, and he can kiss him all he wants. Touch him until he's too tired to anymore. And they’ll sleep and wake up and he’ll get to _do it all over again._ The mere thought makes his throat tight, his eyes sting. Bofur spreads a palm over his own chest, just to feel the thud of his heart for a second. _This is real,_ he tells himself, hiking one leg up to sit on, using the other against the ground to restlessly rock himself on the swing. _You’re real._

He’s fucking beaming like an idiot all alone there on the porch when his phone vibrates against his thigh where it’s tucked in his pocket. Damn. It’s been doing that all afternoon, and he just keeps being too busy or distracted or elated to remember to actually check it. Plus, he’s been with Bard all day, and frankly, he's hard-pressed to care about anyone else at the moment. However, this is his first moment to himself since they picked up the kids, and on top of that, it actually _could_ be Bard this time, so he makes himself sigh and fish it out, unlocking the screen. 

There are so many missed texts, it’s fucking overwhelming, actually, and his stomach twists up a little bit in response. Luckily, the latest one _is_ from Bard, so he starts there. _Miss you already. Can’t wait to have you in my arms again. I love you xx,_ is what it says, and he reads it three times, wondering if he will _ever_ get used to this—to Bard’s honesty, his vulnerability. To his love. Bofur’s fucking _heart_ picks up in his chest as he types up a response, chewing his lip. _miss you too, so bad. can’t wait either. literally sitting on the porch right now dreaming of you._

Instead of obsessively waiting for a response, he gets up and heads back inside, scrolling through the rest of his texts, which are _all_ from Bilbo.

Bofur collapses on the couch to read beside Bain and Tilda, who apparently fell asleep watching My Little Pony after dinner. _Where are you??? I'm going shopping if you’d like to come,_ is the first one, followed by a series that all feature similar content. _Then,_ when Bofur did not answer, Bilbo’s tone became more urgent. _jesus. mary. and Josef BOFUR where are you and what are you doing!!?? I try not to be the worrying sort but the last time i saw you there were TEARS involved please just tell me you’re ok._

Bilbo actually seems to have gone through the five stages of grief in the duration of his texting journey because by the time Bofur arrives at the last text, it is fairly resigned: _I don’t even care if you’re dead! tbh! but if you’re not pLEASE text me because if you cannot tell by the deluge I'm rather concerned. i hope you’re just sucking dick, though. please let it be dick and not kidnapping or something similarly unsavory,_ followed by a long string of prayer hands emojis.

Bofur stifles a reflexive laugh, flattening his hand over his mouth to keep from waking the kids. _omfg, sorry to worry you. not dead. at bard’s,_ Bofur finally replies, grinning down at his phone very complacently.

Bilbo _immediately_ texts back. _Oh thank god!! thorin told me one hundred times that was probably the case, but I've been deep breathing into a paper bag all the same. also BARD?? BARD??? BARD??? HOW IS THAT GOING i require grossly detailed updates please!!!_

Bofur spends a long time thumbing absently over his screen, trying to figure out how the fuck to put it into _words._ Considering if he even _wants_ to put it into words yet—or if he has the words to put it into. _We’re together now_ seems too weird and bland and anticlimactic considering how _vast_ the feelings actually are, and _apparently he loves me back, isn't that crazy?!_ seems too self-deprecating and ungrateful, so in the end, he just settles on practicality. 

_Long story, will tell you in person. but. He asked me to move in, so we needs to have a good old fashion House of Durin meeting so I can break the news to the lads,_ he sends. 

Then his cell _rings_ , because Bilbo is an abomination and the only anxious young person Bofur has ever met who is somehow not afraid of making phone calls. Bain murmurs in his sleep and stirs, so Bofur vaults up off the couch to answer in the kitchen. “Hey,” he says in a stage whisper as he scrambles out of the room, cell pressed to his ear. “Hold on a minute, I gotta—don’t want to wake up the kids.” 

“ _The kids,”_ Bilbo mimics, voice somewhat threadier than usual, high and shrill and bordering on hysterical. “ _Your_ kids, Bofur, they’re _your kids now,_ you have three! Fucking! Kids! You Maria von Trapped your dilf, it happened! I could—well! I could positively _explode_ like a Christmas cracker.” 

Bofur tries to laugh, but it comes out more of a cough. “Well they’re not _officially_ my kids, he didn’t ask me to marry him or anything.” 

“He asked you to move in. Marriage is imminent. I could _scream_ but then the whole house would know, and I suspect you’d like to be the one to break it to them.” 

“Scream?! I can’t read your tone, are you, like— _mad_ at me or something?” Bofur asks, wrinkling his nose up indignantly, “M’sorry I didn't answer your texts, I was—”

“Busy sucking dick. Your future husband’s dick. And _no_ it’s quite alright, I’m not _mad,_ I’m elated! And relieved! But mostly just elated!” Bilbo exclaims, and Bofur sags against the counter in relief, letting out a long breath he hardly realized he was holding. Bilbo is happy for him. This is good.

“Shit, alright. Well. M’relieved and elated, too. Obviously.” 

“I’m just—I’m so happy for you, Bofur, truly,” Bilbo gushes, voice suddenly thick with sincerity in a way that makes Bofur’s throat tight. “You deserve this so much, more than…more than anyone I know, really. And I am just beside myself that everything worked out for you.” 

Bofur swallows a lump in his throat as he shifts his weight from Doc to Doc, feeling flayed open and uncomfortably vulnerable and so, so grateful for Bilbo’s friendship, his advice, the how many hours he’s spent in the last two days listening to the same anxious ramblings. Bofur has always had friends, in fact, he’s _usually_ surrounded by people, but it’s _different,_ having someone who actually _knows_ him, who cares about him beyond the fact that he always has the best weed and can do an amazing King Diamond impression. Bofur is used to entertaining people but not being _loved._ And it’s crazy that, in learning to love Bard, his _friendships_ have been strengthened, too. He smiles, big enough for his cheeks to ache. “I’m not sure about the ‘deserving it’ part, but, um, thank you. M’trying to just accept it. Not looking gift horses in the mouth and all that. Also, while we’re gut-spilling and the like, thank you for all the free therapy you’ve been dishing out the last few days and all the expert gay advice. I owe you one.” 

“ _Nonsense_ , you owe me nothing, we’re friends. And I’m learning that vulnerability, as _awful_ as it feels in the moment, is actually sort of a good thing in practice,” Bilbo declares, echoing his sentiments exactly. 

“Tell me about it,” Bofur grumbles. “Imagine all the weed I could have saved if I had just, told Bard I loved him when I figured it out.” 

“I suppose we’ve both learned our lessons regarding such things. But just think! For all our combined miscommunication mishaps, we will be raising _two_ packs of homosexual children we’ve taught to voice their feelings when they have them! We’re breaking the cycle!” Bilbo offers. 

Bofur steals a look into the living room, making sure Bain and Tilda are still passed out. They are. “I like how certain you are that all our kids are going to be gay.” 

“Well I guess I can’t speak for _you_ and yours, but Thorin and I will _not_ be raising heterosexual children, I assure you,” Bilbo scoffs with utter certainty. It reminds Bofur of how young Bilbo is, which is something he easily forgets because of the way he talks and how much he has his _life_ together. Bofur is so used to feeling left behind, sped past, _slow._ It’s weird to realize in this moment that _he’s_ the one who’s moving in with his partner. Who’s gonna be a parent. Who’s fucking _finally_ stepping into some semblance of a functional adult life. It should be scary, but it just—it feels like coming home. Like _finally_ sitting down somewhere comfortable after decades of nervous pacing. He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, shaking his head. 

“But you, like, _are_ having kids? Have you talked about it?” Bofur asks then, holding the phone between his head and shoulder so that he can free up his hands to put away clean dishes from the drying rack. _Our drying rack_ , he thinks. _With our dishes. In our kitchen._ He inhales sharply, amazed by how even the simplest, most basic things about being in love with Bard feel earth-shattering right now in their newness, their _reality._

_“_ We haven't decided _for sure_ for sure, but when we talk about the future and where we want to live and what we want to do, kids are definitely on the table as a possibility. I don’t know. We’re still young and finishing up degrees, so it’s not a terribly pressing matter…but you! You really just got a whole suburban _package,_ didn’t you? White picket fence and everything. How does _that_ feel?” 

Bofur shakes his head, tonguing at the corner of his mouth. “Fucking surreal, to be honest. Like m’living someone else’s life. Or, like—like m’gonna wake up.” 

“I don't know, I think you always were destined to be a family man, given your extensive knowledge of ‘80s cartoons and your action figure collection and your preternatural storytelling abilities. I think this is sort of the perfect fit, actually.” 

And Bofur’s smile at that is a big, wild, face-aching sort of thing. “I think so, too,” he admits. 

——

Bofur decides to tell the House of Durin he’s moving out at the same time Bard sits down with Bain and Tilda to explain why he’s moving _in._ Bofur is considerably more nervous about the second half of that equation than he is about the first, and he’s relieved he won’t have to be present for the initial _don’t worry, I’m not replacing your mother_ talk he’s been dreading ever since he realized it had to happen. He’s fairly certain his roommates will give him a hard time (especially for lying about the milf and keeping Bard a secret for so fucking long), but they’re not gonna be _angry._ And they'll understand. He’s not so _sure_ about the kids, not yet anyway. He knows they love him as a babysitter, but moving in…acting as a parent…that’s a whole different ball game. 

Bard keeps assuring him it won’t be an issue, but his stomach is still knotted up come Saturday, when they part ways early in the morning to hold their separate councils. “It’ll be _fine,”_ Bard promises him, kissing him long and sweet through the unrolled car window, braced against the door so that it leaves a stripe of dust on his white t-shirt when he pulls away. Bofur stares longingly at it, thinking how very unfair it is that these dust particles from his car get to just cling to the cotton fibers of Bard’s shirt while _he_ has to go have stupid annoying adult conversations about breaking leases and moving stuff from Frat Row to South Berkeley. He’d much rather just cling to the cotton fibers of Bard’s shirt. Or, like, his skin. “Text me when you’re done, and I’ll come pick you up. We can go shopping for dinner.” 

Bofur sighs, thumping his head back into the seat and tearing his gaze away from Bard’s flat, sexy, biteable stomach he has to wait, like, a whole hour _minimum_ before getting to bite again. “You got it. Wish me luck.” 

“Good luck. I love you,” Bard says fondly, dipping back down for one more kiss before righting himself and jogging back up to the house. 

Bofur sighs, rolls up the window, and drives to his house that’s not really his at all, not anymore. And a part of him feels a little sad about that in spite being _mostly_ excited, so he just—lets himself sit in the bittersweet ache for a moment, drumming his fingers along to “The Abyss of Your Eyes” and chewing the inside of his lip. He has so many good memories from the last ten years, and it’s not like the House is _going_ anywhere, but it’s still the end of an era, and losing things, even in favor of gaining _better_ things, still hits him with a dull ache.

When he _does_ make it to the House of Durin, he finds everyone restlessly gathered in the living room, scattered about and squished onto the couches or sitting on the floor, Bilbo flitting about trying to keep them all contained after having clearly rounded them up in the first place. Iron Maiden is playing in the background, providing a growling, anxious bass line for the tittering energy in the room. “It’s about time!” Kili whines from where he’s sharing the torn-up leather ottoman with his brother, both of them jammed into it like sardines. “I have a date in, like, twenty minutes. So keep it quick, Bofur.” 

And so Bofur doesn’t really have _time_ to agonize over how to best phrase the news (which is perhaps for the better). He has no other choice save for blurting it right out: “Well then, chop chop, I see. Um. Well I’ve gathered you all here today to make an announcement,” he starts, clapping his hands and rubbing them together anxiously. “Which is that, as fun as the last…god? Seven? Ten? I don’t even fucking know? Years living fast and hard with all you fine lads here at the House of Durin has been, I’m gonna be moving out to live with—”

“The milf?!” Bomber interrupts, face positively glowing in barely restrained glee. 

Kili starts cackling, Dori cheers triumphantly, and then the whole fucking _room_ erupts into a cacophony of absolute chaos for a moment before Thorin, who was standing in the stairwell with his arms crossed over his chest, very quietly yells, “ _Enough!”_ and everyone promptly shuts up. “Let him finish.” 

“About that,” Bofur adds, making a face and cocking his head. “There never actually _was_ a milf, you see, because this whole time I’ve _actually_ just been sleeping with my boss. Who’s not my boss anymore because he’s, like, my boyfriend. My partner. We’re moving in together,” he awkwardly explains. “Bard, who some of you have actually met.” 

There’s a tense moment of silence during which Bomber’s grin flickers, disappearing very briefly before it's promptly replaced. “The DILF!” he supplies instead, fist pumping with as much, if not _more_ enthusiasm. Kili cackles _again,_ and that seems to indicate the chaos can resume, so everyone abruptly resumes cat-calling and laughing and arguing amongst themselves (and in some cases, grudgingly exchanging crumpled twenties, which suggests to Bofur there might have been a pool going on behind his back). He gives up on trying to get anyone’s attention anymore, deciding they deserve a moment to process _anyway_ before he launches into boring logistics. He's just standing there at the front of the room staring at his friends when Dwalin strides over with so much purpose that, for a terrifying second, Bofur actually thinks he’s gonna fight him or something. 

Instead, he pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. “Jesus fucking _Christ,”_ he rumbles, the pressure of his forearms so wildly intense that Bofur’s back actually cracks in at least two places. It’s nice. People pay for that shit. “M’so glad you finally took your head out of your arse and figured it out. My god. I was miserable. Fuckin’ miserable, I tell you. Watching you mope around here and then going to work and watching _him_ mope around there…it was torture. I wanted to grab you both and smash your stupid heads together.” 

“Ooof,” Bofur groans, rubbing at his spine when Dwalin finally lets him go. “Bard moped about me?” he asks, stomach pleasantly warm and knotted at the idea. 

“Fucking _hell,_ did he _ever,”_ Dwalin snaps, rolling his eyes. “That day your car broke down? He was a _wreck._ Literally everyone in our department already knew he was in love with you, but after that the whole fucking _store_ was in on it. He’s sort of a wet blanket, you know. Not sure I’ve ever seen the bastard smile more than like three times. All of which were probably your fault.” 

“Hey! That’s my man you’re talking about! He’s not a wet blanket, he’s wonderful,” Bofur argues, heart speeding up from just _saying_ these truths aloud to his roommate, joking like this is all _normal._ Just a part of his life and who he is. It feels so fucking _good_ , he’s positively dizzy with the high of it. 

“Oh I’m _sure,”_ Dwalin says with a smirk, punching Bofur lightly in the arm (though not too lightly because Dwalin is incapable of a genuinely light punch). “Well. Here's to more than three smiles in the future. And hey—we’ll miss you, here in the House,” he adds, lips twisting into a small, watery smile because Dwalin is sort of a secret softie when it comes down to it. 

“M’gonna miss you too,” Bofur admits, grinning. “Also—hey. Thank you for the jobrecommendation,mate. Without you I never would have met Bard. I’d be turning forty next week with nothing to celebrate except being a lonely, broke-ass stoner.”

Dwalin crosses his arms and juts his chin out proudly. “No problem. And m’glad you quit pretending you didn’t want anything better.”

Bofur nods. “Me, too.” 

—-

The meeting takes for-fucking-ever because it keeps devolving into chaos and non-sequiturs, and Bilbo has to bring everyone into the kitchen for a very detailed and annoyingly comprehensive tutorial on the difference between cast iron and Teflon-coated pans, which boils down to how to clean and season the former alongside what utensils are acceptable to use on the latter. After the longest hour and a half of Bofur's _life,_ however, everything is sorted out: he has a date for when he’s vacating his room, half the house has volunteered to help him with his stuff, and he knows _so_ much about pans that he could probably write a reasonably long novella on the subject. 

Bofur anticipated possibly feeling _guilty_ when this was all over and decided upon, but it actually ends up working out serendipitously. Gloin, who only rents a room in the House for his _enormous_ instrument collection, _was_ planning on giving up the sound-proofed storage space so that his son, who started as an undergrad at Cal a few months ago, could move in and save some money by ditching student housing. However, since _Bofur’s_ moving out, Gimli can take his room, and Gloin gets to keep his studio. Everybody is happy. 

Bofur is trying to slip out the door and escape into the yard when Gloin corners him. “Thank you again, so much. My wife appreciates it and so do I,” he says gratefully for the tenth time, slapping Bofur on the shoulder. “I was gonna have to pawn some of my guitars, and my heart was fucking breaking, but! You came along and everything fell into place. Plus, you’ll love my wee lad. He's gay, too.” 

Bofur does not have it in his heart to tell Gloin he’s not exactly _gay_ like his son, so instead he just awkwardly pats him back. “Well! Then m’thrilled he’ll continue the legacy of dick-sucking Bilbo started on that floor,” he says with a grin before excusing himself to the downstairs bathroom so that he can have a moment of peace. He locks the door, washes his face, and then fishes his phone out of his pocket to _finally_ text Bard and tell him he’s _done._ He’s relieved that everyone at the House of Durin reacted the way they did, but his heart still clenches in nerves every time he remembers Bard’s talking to the kids. He’s not _totally_ out of the woods yet. 

_Durin Council is over, Bilbo spent a half hour lecturing us about pans. Gloin’s gay son is moving into my room apparently. all is well, If you’re ready plz come rescue me,_ he texts, too afraid to ask outright about the kids until he can see Bard’s face, read the nuance in his eyes, _touch_ him. 

_lol sorry about the pans, very cute about the gay son. on my way. love you,_ Bard texts back, and Bofur smiles big and dopey at his phone, stomach flipping over the way it does _every_ time Bard says he loves him. He says it a _lot,_ too, which is good because Bofur’s fairly certain he would be doubting the fiber of reality without the constant reminder. _Love you too,_ he sends back, and then he leans against the bathroom wall and takes a deep fucking breath. 

Before he heads out front to wait for Bard, he finds Bilbo in the kitchen, where he is somewhat condescendingly _re-_ demonstrating the cast iron seasoning process for Ori, who is watching with wide eyes. “Bilbo, can I borrow you for a minute for an expert opinion?” Bofur asks, poking him in the side. 

He whips around, eyes bright. “Absolutely! What do you need?” Then, his cheeks color a bit. “Wait, _what_ expert opinion? What do you think I’m an expert in? If you need sex advice, you should ask Thorin, he’s much better about talking about that stuff. I, personally, require a pint or two if we’re going there.”

“No, not a sex thing. Let me show you,” Bofur explains, dragging Bilbo out the sliding glass door to the back patio without even letting him set down the skillet first. Then, he gestures to the little tomato plant, still resiliently poking out of the cracked pavement, leaves wilting but otherwise trying their hardest. “Do you think that tomato would survive transplant? I want—I want to bring it with me. Bard has raised beds in his yard, and I’ve weeded them but haven’t planted anything and I guess. This little guy could be an experiment. A keepsake from the House of Durin.” 

Bilbo crouches, prodding at the hard soil around the stem with prudent fingers. “Well, we can try. It’s certainly not going to last long out here. Grab me an empty coffee can from the recycling and my trowel,” he says, sounding for all the world like the head surgeon of a primetime doctor drama. Bofur does as he's told, and ten minutes later, the tomato plant is packed neatly into the can in freshly watered soil, roots and all. Bofur takes notes in his phone about plant care, and Bilbo seems thrilled that _someone_ is listening to him about _something._

Bofur is leaning against the cement retaining wall outside the House of Durin with the coffee can under his arm when Bard pulls up with the kids in the backseat. “How did it go?!” Bofur asks, watching with wide, anxious eyes as Bard brakes and steps out. Instead of answering, he just strides up and kisses Bofur full on the mouth right there in the _street_ , so it can’t have gone that poorly. It’s a sweet, chaste, brief kiss, but it makes Bofur’s heart flutter all the same, stomach tight as the rim of the can digs into it between their bodies. 

“It went fine, they’re thrilled you’ll be home more. I told you, they love you,” Bard says easily, cupping Bofur’s face with a warm palm as he looks down, head cocked. “What’s this?” 

“A little tomato plant I rescued from the yard. Bilbo told me how to take care of it, I thought I could finally put the raised beds to use. Do a garden with the kids.” 

Bard kisses him again, a little _less_ chastely this time, his lips plush and so warm that Bofur’s vision is nothing but static when he pulls away. Sigrid rolls down the window and deadpans, “Ew,” at them, and Bard turns around to shoot a look at her as Tilda belts out “Jellicle Cats,”and Bain repeatedly hits the roof of the car with one of his _socks_ he's either found stuffed in between the seats or else taken off out of boredom, and Bofur realizes this—this is his fucking _life,_ now. He beams, smoothing a hand up Bard’s side. “So,” he says, clearing his throat. “Any dinner ideas?” 

“I figured we’d just go to Stop and Shop and stock up for the week.” Bard says, carding a hand through his hair as they climb into the car. The second Bofur’s inside, Tilda is hugging him from behind, positively _strangling_ him in the process. 

“When are you moving?!” she demands to know, a hair barrette nearly poking him in the eye. 

“Yes, we're all eagerly awaiting the moving date,” Bard echoes, before frowning into the back seat. “Tilda, Jesus, put your seat belt back on. And Bain. Where are your shoes?!” Then his gaze cuts back to Bofur, dark and exasperated and perhaps a little pleading. “Are you certain you’re ready to dive headfirst into this _all_ the time?” he asks. And he’s joking, maybe, but there’s a thread of something more serious running through the question like gold, coloring his words with sincerity. As if there’s any chance in _hell_ Bofur is having second thoughts. 

Bofur reaches across the divide between the passenger and driver side to lay a hand on Bard’s thigh, squeezing reassuringly. “Literally, would not trade it for the world,” he promises, balancing his tomato plant on his knee.

And when they loop back around to head down the hill, the sun is setting over the marina, the sky is all honey-gold and sherbet-pink and Halloween-orange, and Bofur turns to watch it reflect off Bard’s sunglasses where they’re hooked into the front of his shirt and smiles, thinking about the rest of his whole life and how it’s stretched ahead of him, sweet and messy like burnt sugar. 


End file.
